To employ 5000 citizens and benefit 25,000 farmers
A mega food park in Palakkad district of Kerala was virtually inaugurated on October 1, 2020 by Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Minister for Food Processing Industries, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, and Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister of Kerala. Rameshwar Teli, Union Minister of State for Food Processing Industries was also present on the occasion.
This project will give impetus to the development of the food processing sector which is the 20th food park of the country and Kerala’s first.
According to Tomar, the Mega Food Park will prove to be a milestone in the development of the food processing sector in Kerala. It will leverage an additional investment of about Rs 250 crore 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.
Teli said that the facilities created in the park will not only reduce wastage of agricultural produce but will also ensure value addition. With this, farmers will get better prices of their agriproducts and their income will also increase. He added that this will provide processing opportunities to farmers, self-help groups, and micro-entrepreneurs and create more employment opportunities in the surrounding areas.
The KINFRA Mega Food Park has been set up in 79.42 acres of land at a project cost of Rs. 102.13 crore. The facilities created by the Implementing Agency at Central Processing Centre (CPC) of this Mega Food Park include Multi-product Cold Storage-5000MT, Drywarehouse-12000 MT, Pack House (Sorting Grading, Packing) 10MT/Hr, Ripening Chambers- 120MT, Condiment processing with mechanical drying facility-15MT/day, Food Testing Laboratory besides state of art enabling infrastructure.
The Park has a common administrative building for office and other uses by the entrepreneurs and 04 Primary Processing Centres (PPCs) at Ernakulam (Mazhavanur), Thrissur (Koratty), Malappuram (Kakkanchery) and Wayanad (Kalpetta) districts with Packhouse facilities for primary processing and storage near the farms in the catchment area to benefit farmers. This Mega Food Park will benefit the people of Palakkad-District as well as nearby Districts of Malappuram & Thrissur of Kerala and nearby district of Coimbatore of Tamil Nadu.