Mega Food Parks: Objective and Benefits

Mega Food Parks: Objective and Benefits

Question: Technology can aid in the growth of food processing industries in India. State the primary objective of Mega Food Parks as well as their benefit.

Objective

Primary objective of establishing Mega Food parks is the provision of modern infrastructure facilities for food processing along the value chain from farm to market using a cluster based approach associated with hub and spokes model

Benefits

- This involves creation of infrastructure for primary processing and storage close to farm through PPCs/Primary Processing Centres and CCs/Collection Centres as well as facilitation of infrastructure such as rail, electricity, water and more

- Central Processing Centre has also been formulated as part of Mega Food Parks

- PPCs and CCs are aggregation and storage points to feed raw material to processing units located within the CPC

- These are demand driven projects which facilitate food processing units for meeting social, safety and environmental standards

- Overall socioeconomic impact of operational Mega Food Parks for catchment area is majorly positive

- Setting up of these parks lowers wastage of horticultural and agricultural produce

- It also ensures increased sourcing from farmers and enhanced shelf life through primary processing such as sorting and grading

- Better storage and availability of modern common infrastructure procurement and realisation of better prices of produce is another positive benefit

- Mega food parks also eliminate/lower the number of middle men besides promoting training and technology transfer

- They benefit the industry through aiding value addition through common infrastructure facilities and induction of advanced technologies

Facts and Stats

- Each Mega Food Park will attract investment of INR 100 crore in common facilities and additional investment of INR 250 crore

- Expected annual turnover of the park is around INR 500 crore and this is projected to benefit 6000 farmers in a direct way and 25,000 to 30,000 farmers in an indirect manner

- Of the 40 mega food parks set up in the nation, around 23 have been given final approval

- 5 Mega Food Parks have become operational namely:

- Haridwar (Uttarkhand),

- Chittoor (Andhra Pradesh),

- Fazilka (Punjab),

- Tumkur (Karnataka)

- Nalbari (Assam)

- In principle approval has been accorded to remaining 17 mega food parks.