Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Jan 8: In a bid to boost growth of agriculture and allied sectors, the state has an ambitious plan of setting up of 18 mega food parks in coming years. The state government will prepare feasibility reports for these proposed parks in a month, a top official of the MSME department said.
“Feasibility reports for another 18 mega food parks will be prepared within one month. These parks will encourage food processing units in the state,” Principal Secretary of MSME department, G K Dhal said at a workshop on “Food Processing Technologies” organised by Anil Agarwal Foundation in collaboration with Orissa Industries Association here.
He also said the proposed mega food park in Rayagada will be completed by October 2016. About Rs 20 crore has already been invested out of estimated investment of Rs 80 crore. Similarly, the sea food park at Deras will be operational by December 2016. On food processing units in the state, Dhal said, the department is streamlining various policies to improve share of food processing from present 1 per cent to 10 per cent by 2017 and 25 per cent by 2025. He also said the government has identified 62 items such as rice, mango, banana, turmeric among others to leverage the growth of processing industry in the state. “Despite Orissa being an agrarian economy, farmers are not receiving real return on their produce. This can be solved through apt adoption of food processing technologies,” President of Anil Agarwal Foundation, B K Patnaik said.
