New Delhi, June 1: Union food processing minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal Thursday inaugurated the first mega food park in Orissa being set up at an investment of Rs 80 crore. The Centre would provide up to Rs 50 crore subsidy under the mega food park scheme.
According to an official statement, MITS Mega Food Park Pvt Ltd at Rayagada was inaugurated Thursday. “This is the seventh mega food park operationalised in last three years by the present government,” it said.
Petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan and minister of state for food processing Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti were present at the event.
Badal said the mega food park has been set up on a 50.05 acre plot at a cost of Rs 80.17 crore. The Centre has provided a financial assistance of Rs 50 crore to the park. The food park has facilities like fully operational industrial sheds for SMEs, developed industrial plots for lease to food processing units, rice processing complex of 12 tonnes per hour, dry warehouse of 10,000 tonne, cold store of 2,500 tonnes, multi fruit processing facility and other food processing facilities.
Badal said the modern infrastructure for food processing created at MITS Mega Food Park will benefit the farmers, growers, processors and consumers of Orissa.
“Mega Food Park will benefit not only the people of Rayagada but also those in the adjoining districts of Nabarangpura, Ganjam and Khurda,” she said.
Badal further said that the park will leverage an additional investment of about Rs 250 crore in 25-30 food processing units in the park and generate a turnover of about Rs 450-500 crore annually.
The park will also provide direct and indirect employment to 5,000 people and benefit about 25,000 farmers in the CPC and PPC catchment areas.
The Centre is implementing the Mega Food Park Scheme in the country to give a boost to the food processing sector by adding value and reducing food wastage.
These parks create modern infrastructure facilities for food processing along the value chain from farm to market, the statement said.
“Common facilities and enabling infrastructure is created at Central Processing Centre and facilities for primary processing and storage is created near the farm in the form of Primary Processing Centers (PPCs) and Collection Centres (CCs),” it added.
Press Trust of India