Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing, government of India Dr Charan Das Mahant, laid the foundation stone of the first mega food park at Jagdishpur in Amethi district of Uttar Pradesh today.
The Minister expressed the hope that setting up of this modern food processing facility will usher in a new era of food processing in the entire region. The Park, the Minister informed, will have nearly 35 industrial units and will give direct and indirect employment to about 30,000 persons.
The Park will have most-modern infrastructure and facilities for food processing. This, Dr Mahant said, will help small and medium sized entrepreneurs, self-help groups and farmer-groups to set up food processing industries. This will create a market for raw material and in turn provide better prices to farmers for their produce.
Dr Mahant said that though the State produces a variety of foodgrains, fruits and vegetables, the lack of infrastructural facilities deterred entrepreneurs from establishing food processing industries. The Mega Food Park will fill up this void and act as a model for the entire region, leading to fast growth of food processing in Uttar Pradesh over the years, he said.
The Shaktiman Mega Food Park has been set up with assistance under the programme, ‘Scheme of Mega Food Parks’. The scheme aims at facilitating the establishment of a strong food processing infrastructure backed by an efficient supply chain. This includes establishment of collection centres, primary processing centres, a central processing centre and cold chain infrastructure. The processing centres have infrastructure required for processing, packaging, environmental protection systems, quality control labs, trade facilitation, etc. which is shared by all industrial units in the food park.