Satara, March 1: Maharashtra’s First Mega Food Park was inaugurated at Satara on Thursday in presence of Union Minister of Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. The Satara Mega Food Park Pvt. Ltd. is located at Degaon Village. This is the 12th Mega Food Park operationalized in the country so far and the 10th operationalized during the tenure of present government.

To give a major fillip to the food processing sector by adding value and reducing food wastage at each stage of the supply chain with particular focus on perishables, Ministry of Food Processing Industries is implementing Mega Food Park Scheme in the country. Speaking on the occasion, Kaur said that under the visionary guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Ministry of Food Processing Industries is focusing on boosting the food processing industry so that agriculture sector grows exponentially and becomes a major contributor to doubling the farmer’s income and ‘Make in India’ initiative of the government.

Mega Food Parks create modern infrastructure facilities for food processing along the value chain from farm to market with strong forward and backward linkages through a cluster based approach. 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 Centers (CCs). Under the Scheme, Government of India provides financial assistance uptoRs. 50.00 Crore per Mega Food Park project.

The Minister informed that the Mega Food Park will leverage an additional investment of about Rs 250 crores in 25-30 food processing units in the park and would eventually lead to a turnover of about Rs. 450-500 crore annually. The Park will also provide direct and indirect employment to 5,000 persons and benefit about 25,000 farmers in the CPC and PPC catchment areas.

Badal also said that the present government is fully committed to providing an environment that is smooth, transparent and easy for investors wanting to start an enterprise in India and in a bid to make India a resilient food economy and the Food Factory of the World, the government has made Food Processing a major thrust area of ‘Make in India’.  The Minister said that food processing sector will contribute immensely towards ‘Doubling Farmers income’ in the coming years and the Ministry is working tirelessly to achieving this goal through implementation of projects under the flagship scheme of ‘Pradhan MantriKisan SAMPADA Yojana’.

The Chief Minister of Maharashtra assured that this food park will be one of the best food processing industries in the country.  Food Parks is need of the hour to make the agriculture sustainable, he added.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 01, 2018 11:05 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).