Govt awards food park projects worth $1 b

The Modi government on Tuesday awarded Adani Ports and 16 other entities projects to develop mega food parks across the country, an initiative involving nearly  $1 billion in investment and the potential to create thousands of jobs.

On the 17 mega food parks allocated by the Centre on Tuesday, private companies have bagged 10, while public sector undertakings would develop seven such clusters to promote setting up of food processing units.

“These 17 mega food parks will involve investments to the tune of Rs 2,300 crore, which would include a Rs 850 crore grant from the Centre. Additional investments to the tune of Rs 4,000 crore would be required to set up food processing units that would come up in these parks,” Minister of Food Processing Harsimrat Kaur Badal told reporters here.

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, an Adani Group firm, would set up a project at Kutch in Gujarat with an investment of Rs 168.60 crore, Ruchi Soya group firm Ruchi Acroni Industries’ project will come up at Dewas in Madhya Pradesh. Real estate giant Amrapali Group will develop the Mums Mega Food Park at Buxar in Bihar.

Five states benefit

Five state governments — Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha — have been allocated one food park each, while Kerala government has been allocated two food parks.

Badal said that the basic infrastructure in these food parks needs to be created within 30 months.The 17 food parks are expected create 80,000 jobs and benefit five lakh farmers.
Under the scheme (2008-09) of mega food parks, the Food Processing Ministry had sanctioned 42 projects throughout the country. Of these, 25 parks have already been allocated.


Food for thought

Of the total 17 food parks, 10 have been bagged by private players, remaining 7 by PSUs
Adani, Ruchi Soya and Amrapali among investors
Total investment of Rs 2,300 crore involved
Around eight states to benefit
Basic infrastructure to be ready within 30 months