Speaking at the World of Food India convention in Mumbai, Ashok Sinha, secretary of the ministry of food processing industries (Mofpi), said that in the coming few weeks the ministry would bring out a notice containing a proposal to all national and international food manufacturers to set up around 3-4 mega food parks in the country.
Mofpi is the youngest union ministry in India. “About 8-10 interested national and international processed food manufacturers can come to the ministry. We will subsidise Rs 50 crore per food park which will be used for infrastructure, basic systems and facilities. Further, we expect the interested companies to invest about Rs 50 crore to build the mega food park”.
According to the Mofpi, the “mega food park” concept was coined last year with an aim to utilise India’s raw material aptly, reduce wastage and boost optimum allocation of scare resources.
Further, Sinha also informed that the Central government has permitted the ministry to set up 30 such mega food parks anywhere in India. “My target is to build at least 10 food parks as early as possible. The Mofpi also has various schemes to promote other crucial segments like cold chains where we will pay about Rs 20 crore for jumbo cold chain”.
Recently the ministry also sanctioned 10 cold chains of which 8 are ready to function in few months. About FDI in the food processing industry, Sinha informed Food & Beverage News that the current buzzword in Mofpi is FDI. He said, “We are trying our best attract FDI. We don’t have the current statistics as finance ministry analyses the inflow of the FDI in food processing but I am sure that we obtained less investment this year compared to the last year".
“At present, the role/duty of the Mofpi is to fix/sort out the grievances of the keen foreign investors who want to invest in the Indian food processing industry,” Sinha told Food & Beverage News on the sidelines of the global convention.