Retail and food majors like Pantaloons Retail, Capital Foods, Temptation Foods and Brittal Foods have evinced interest in setting up mega food parks in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab and UP. With six mega food parks already under implementation and four others being planned, the mega food park programme has made major headway.
Funds have already been allocated for the five food parks to be set up this financial year. However, of the six ongoing mega food parks, only the one in Haridwar, Uttarakhand, has started operations. Food parks in Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Assam are at various stages of implementation while the ones in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have finalised the land and submitted their detailed project reports (DPR) to the food processing ministry.
Currently, the ministry has received 37 proposals for mega food parks of which 15 are for Maharashtra, 10 for Karnataka, 6 for Punjab and 5 for UP. The selection process is expected to be completed by the month-end. The government would provide Rs 50 crore for each of the 30 mega food parks it is planning to set up by the end of the 11th Five Year Plan.
Setting up a mega food park is expected to incur an expenditure of Rs 150 crore. The government?s contribution is used to create infrastructure facilities like cold storage, incubation centre, warehouse, quality control laboratory drinking water facilities, roads, power supply, core processing centre and related facilities in the primary processing centre and collection centres.
