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New Sampada scheme to give free hand to entrepreneurs keen on food clusters
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Tuesday, 14 June, 2016, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Ashwani Maindola, New Delhi
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fiogf49gjkf0d The ministry of food processing industries (MoFPI), under its new Sampada scheme, has decided to give free hand to entrepreneurs to decide the size of the land for setting up food processing units as part of clusters. Until now entrepreneurs could come up with their plans only for Mega Food Parks but with the new scheme, they have the option of deciding on smaller sized food clusters. The government will soon notify the scheme and reveal its guidelines. However, there is a small rider that has been put forth. The entrepreneurs should be having five units under the plan and Rs 25 crore investment besides it should be close to farming hub. It may be multistoried, or spanning in few acres.
According to ministry officials, the requirement of landholding for setting up of the industry/unit has been removed while the Mega Food Park plan will remain there.
Union minister for food processing industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal stated that there was nothing in between Mega Food Park scheme and Cold Chain scheme to promote the food processing industries and it had been done to further augment the opportunities in the sector.
She stated this while replying to a question at a recently held press meet in New Delhi, “When we took over, we analysed that one of the reasons the scheme of Mega Park was not taking off, was requirement of 50 acre of land. Further, there was nothing in between the schemes of Mega Park and Cold Chain to bridge the link. So we decided to have a cluster-based approach to further the opportunities in the processing sector.”
Under the scheme, there will be flexibility in terms of land requirement and an individual can set up a park but it should have minimum five units and be in close proximity to a farm cluster.
This has been done to encourage more clusters to come up where food processing can be carried out and help in value addition to the farm produce ultimately helping in reducing food wastage and increasing the food processing in the country, according to the minister.
Meanwhile, MoFPI is awaiting the final nod to the FDI policy in food retail (produced and manufactured in India). The matter was supposed to come up before the cabinet recently but it got delayed. Now it is expected to be taken up after the prime minister comes back from foreign visit.
Under the FDI policy, MoFPI has proposed that 15% of the investment should be spent at the farm gate so that the basic infrastructure that includes grading, sorting and controlled atmosphere warehousing can be set up to enhance the shelf life of the farm produce.
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