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46 Food Processing projects operationalised : Project Development Cell to accelerate investments
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Tuesday, 05 January, 2021, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Our Bureau, New Delhi
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Ministry of Food Processing Industries has taken numerous initiatives for development of food processing sector. Some of the major achievements and initiatives are as below:
Creation of Infrastructure Facilities
A total of 46 food processing projects were completed/operationalised; Mega Food Park:3, Cold Chain:15, Unit:21, Food Testing Laboratories:7
The 46 completed projects created additional processing and preservation capacity of agricultural produce of 31.52 lakh MT per annum. 15 cold chain infrastructure projects created additional milk processing and storage capacityof56.99 (lakh litre per day) and 11.80 MT/hour of IQF (Instant Quick Freezing) of fruits and vegetables.
The 46 completed projects leveraged private investment of Rs 771.79 crore and generated direct and indirect employment for 24567 persons.
Approval of New Infrastructure Facilities
A total of 134 food processing projects were sanctioned; Agro Processing Clusters: 21, Cold Chain:47, Unit: 43, Backward and Forward Linkages: 8, Operation Greens: 3 and Food Testing Laboratories:12.
The 134 new food processing and food testing laboratory projects sanctioned will create additional processing and preservation capacity of agricultural produce of 38.3 lakh MT per annum. The 47 cold chain infrastructure projects will create additional milk processing and storage capacity of 13.10 LLPD (lakh litre per day) and 34.20 MT/hour of IQF (Instant Quick Freezing) of fruits and vegetables.
The new 134 sanctioned projects are expected to leverage private investment of Rs 2026.32 crore and generated direct and indirect employment for 77330 persons.
Covid-19 initiatives and Grievances Redressal
Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) has been taking several initiatives for maintaining steady growth of food processing sector. Alike many sectors, food processing sector also went through several hitches during the lockdown. Critical issues such as reduction in processing capacity due to plant shutdowns, disruption in logistics and movement of workers, labour availability at manufacturing sites as well as steep drop in demand, liquidity crunch impacted the sector.
At the very moment of announcement of lockdown, MoFPI through its dedicated task force, adopted a proactive approach and facilitated timely redressal of issues being faced by the food and allied industry.
Maintaining uninterrupted supply chain and availability of food to the entire country, has been one of the most crucial tasks of this ministry. The ministry established a Grievance Cell and a Task Force which ensured business continuity by facilitating hundreds of units in resuming their operations.
Resolved 585 issues during the COVID lockdown period. Connected with 363 leading processing companies in all states / UTs to understand the capacity utilization of these companies and support required to ramp up the production. 7 video conferences were organised with industry associations, leading processors, exporters, FPOs, retailers and other stakeholders to assess the situation at the ground level as well as to gauge the industry requirements in the post lockdown era ? industry recommendations were thoroughly observed to provide maximum benefits to this sector under Atmanirbhar Bharat packages.
Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan
Ministry of Food Processing Industries launched an all India centrally sponsored PM Formalisation of Micro food processing Enterprises (PMFME) Scheme for providing financial, technical and business support for upgradation of existing micro food processing enterprises. It is to be implemented for a period of five years from 2020-21 to 2024-25 with an outlay of Rs 10,000 crores.
The scheme was approved by the Cabinet on May 20, 2020 and the guidelines were issued on June 19, 2020. The Scheme was launched by the Minister and MoS, FPI on June 29, 2020. The GIS ODOP digital map of India was launched by the Minster and MoS, FPI on November 19 2020 through VC. The map provides details of ODOP products of all the States and UTs. The digital map also has indicators for Tribal, SC, ST, and aspirational districts. It will enable stakeholders to make concerted efforts for its value chain development.
554 ODOP of 24 States and UTs have been approved till date.
Capacity Building & Training
Training of Master Trainers for Fruits & Vegetable Processing and EDP inaugurated by the Minster and MoS, FPI on November 19 2020 through VC. 22 DPRs, 99 Audio Video tutorials and Power Point Presentations have been prepared and uploaded by NIFTEM and IIFPT on food processing by micro industries.
MoUs, Joint Letter, and Agreement
Joint Letter with the Ministry of Rural Development signed on November 20, 2020 for identification and data collection of eligible SHGs, training and capacity building of beneficiaries, leveraging capacity of DAY-NRLM, handholding support to beneficiaries to avail the seed capital and capital subsidy and marketing and branding of produces of beneficiaries.
Joint Letter with the Ministry of Tribal Affairs signed on December 18, 2020 for marketing support to TRIFOOD products, building the capacity of its state, district and field-level staff for supporting and handholding identified beneficiaries under the PMFME Scheme. An MoU signed with the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India on December 18, 2020 for the development of a new brand ‘Nafed Food’ for the marketing and development of Agricultural food products made by FPOs/SHGs/Co-operatives groups. An MoU with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research signed on December 18, 2020 for the facilitation of details of food processing technologies, packaging and machinery developed at various institutes of ICAR, particularly suitable to Micro-enterprises, FPOs, SHGs and Cooperatives under the PMFME Scheme.
An MoU with the National Cooperative Development Corporation signed on December 18, 2020 for support to Cooperatives engaged in food processing activities in the country in various States and UTs under the PMFME Scheme. An MoU with the National Scheduled Castes Finance and Development Corporation on December 18, 2020 for capacity building, research, training and development support to individual enterprises /SHGs/FPOs owned by SC beneficiaries involved in food processing under the PMFME Schemon
An MoU with Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India signed on December 18, 2020 for the development of a new brand ‘TriFood’ for food products made by tribal people and undertake efforts for its marketing, appropriate packaging, product development, etc., for tribal food products under the PMFME Scheme. An Agreement signed with Union Bank as a Nodal Bank on December 18, 2020 for transfer of subsidy amount, monitoring and liaising with lending banks for target driven approvals of applications and timely disbursal of subsidies to beneficiaries.
Project Implementation Plan
Project Implementation Plans of seven States and UTs have been approved.
State Level Technical Institutions
State Level Technical Institutions of 28 states and UTs have been approved.
Financial Progress
Rs 93.83 crore released to 35States/UTs. Rs 10 crore allocated to NIFTEM and IIFPT.
Operation Green scheme Extended from tomato, onion and potato (TOP) crops to a total of 41 notified horticulture crops for a period of six months for providing subsidy for their transportation and storage, if prices fall below the average prices for last three years or 15 per cent below of previous year’s price. Scheme was notified on June 11, 2020 and amended on July 24, 2020 and October 12, 2020. 21 fruits and 20 vegetable crops are notified for receiving subsidy under the Scheme. List of eligible crops, surplus production clusters and trigger price is available on Ministry’s website.
Online portal to process claims for subsidy was setup 3,195 applicants have registered from 30 States/UT on the portal till December 24, 2020; 49 online claims for total subsidy have been received for Onion, Carrot, and Banana. Of these, 12 claims are sanctioned for Rs 94.14 Lakh for transportation of 5,268 MT of Onion and 545 MT of Banana and storage of 1,225 MT of Carrot; Transportation subsidy under the scheme was extended to Kisan Rail Scheme w.e.f. October 12, 2020. Indian Railway is providing the transport subsidy directly to any applicants by way of charging 50 per cent of their freight charges from them for transportation of any quantity of notified F and V through Kisan Rail Scheme and will adjust remaining 50 per cent of freight from deposit made by MoFPI with them. Rs 10 Crore was sanctioned to Indian Railway (South Central Railway) on October 23, 2020. Recently, Ministry allowed transport subsidy on any F and V through any rail service provided by Indian Railway.
Scheme guidelines amended to provide the transportation subsidy to all the notified F and V being transported by air from the NER and Himalayan Region States. Airlines would charge 50 per cent freight for all the fruits and vegetables booked from these airports on the same lines as Kisan Rail. Scheme Guidelines further amended to provide 50 per cent subsidy to eligible entities through NAFED for transportation and/or storage of apple from Jammu and Kashmir. Rs 10 Crore as advance has been released to NAFED for this.
Promotional Activities
A women-centric three-day Organic Food Festival was organised in New Delhi from February 21 to 23, 2020 with an aim to provide opportunity to women entrepreneurs for capacity building and economic empowerment. In addition, 20 B2B interactions with UAE based LULU Group was also organized during the food festival.
On the occasion of 74th Independence Day of India, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries launched a monthly awareness campaign called United by Food on social media, describing about the well-known dishes and processed foods of various States and Union Territories of the country.
In the month of September, the Ministry launched a campaign along with Nutrition Month campaign of Ministry of Women and Child Welfare, namely, 'Processed Yani Paushtik'. In October, the Ministry launched a social media campaign called ‘Ann Devon Bhava’ aimed at providing people with information about processed food as well as traditional food. In this campaign, online quiz competition was also organised by the Ministry with prizes of about Rs1,10,000.
Ministry used various posts on precautions to be taken during festive season on its social media to spread awareness about Covid-19 amongst people. Many posters and banners related to precautions of Corona were put up at various places of the office premises.
Investment Promotion A Project Development Cell at the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) was constituted on June 17, 2020 with the prime objective of accelerating investments. The PDC has been?
Interacting with Individual State / UT Governments for discussion on developing of potential investible projects, company specific issues, creating awareness of benefits under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana.
Having one-on-one discussion with agri-food companies to facilitate their investment interests or issues Handholding and facilitating Government of Ladakh with setting up of Agro- Processing Cluster (APC) in the UT
Institutions
NIFTEM Technology Innovation and Business Incubation Foundation (NTIBIF) and Contract Research Organization have been established to take care of the start-ups in food technology ecosystem and collaborative research with Industry Partners.
A robust automated examination system has been established to provide end to end solutions with regard to students’ registration, setting up of question papers, online evaluation, semester wise results declaration and generation of final grade reports.
NIFTEM Food testing Lab (CFRA) is awarded integrated accreditation system for analysing more than 2200 quality parameters.
Technologies and Indigenous Equipment Developed by IIFPT
Indigenous food 3D printers (both single and multi-heads). Food 3D printing technology can offer enhanced levels of product customization in terms of appearance as well as nutritional value. Integrated collection and filtration unit for coconut water. This can be used in temples and other places of devotion; the water is collected hygienically. Non-thermal (cold) plasma treatment unit for liquid food sterilization was developed and tested for decontamination of milk.
Multi-enzyme based amperometric biosensor was developed for testing thermal oxidation of coconut oil. This can be used for quality evaluation of oils.
New Facilities Created for Research, Training, and Consultancy Services
India’s first food glycemic index and food disintegration kinetics testing facility. The centre uses Asia’s first engineered human digestive system. The facility holds significant research and commercial interest for new food product developments. Pilot-scale ice cream plant 100 L/batch capacity. Fruit beverages (carbonated and non-carbonated) processing pilot plant with100 L/h capacity (MSME funded). Pilot scale spray dryer with 3 kg/h capacity. Virgin coconut oil plant with 1000 nuts/day capacity (Coconut Development Board funded)
Students and Academic Excellence, 100 per cent student placements in major food processing industries including Nestle, ITC, MTR, Cavinkare, Britannia, Aachi, etc. Capacity Building under PM-FME Scheme
Under the MoFPI, IIFPT is serving as the nodal national-level technical institutes for the centrally sponsored, Prime Minister Formalization of Micro Food Processing Enterprises (PM FME) for capacity building and incubation.
IIFPT has prepared the training syllabus for the different levels of PMFME trainings as Training of Master Trainers (ToMT), Training of Trainers (ToT) at District level and Training of Beneficiaries (ToB) to impart skills on various aspects of processing including ODOP.
IIFPT has coordinated with various national level technical institutes and compiled indicative cost norms guidelines hand book for establishment of common incubation facility under PMFME scheme.
Covid-19 Relief Activities
IIFPT supported District Administration and Thanjavur Medical College in Covid-19 related activities by providing healthy foods prepared at IIFPT’s Food Processing Business Incubation Centre. The initiative kicked off on April 21, 2020 and went on up to August 2020. Hand sanitisers were prepared for the police department and COVID warriors, and were supplied on a regular basis. RT-PCR instrument was handed over to the Thanjavur Medical College and Hospital for Covid testing purposes from April 2020 to August 2020. More than 2 lakhs samples have been tested using the instrument.
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