Boost To Food Processing Industry: Govt Approves 29 Projects Under Scheme For Integrated Cold Chain And Value Addition

The government has approved 29 projects for sectors like fruits and vegetables, marine/fisheries, RTE (ready to eat), meat and poultry across the country which may generate employment for over 15,000 people, the Ministry of Food Processing said in a statement on Monday (9 November).

The Inter-Ministerial Approval Committee (IMAC) meeting chaired by Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Minister for Food Processing Industries, approved 21 projects, leveraging investment worth Rs 443 crore supported with a grant of Rs 189 crore under the Scheme for Integrated Cold Chain and Value Addition, said the statement.

As per the ministry's statement, eight projects leveraging investment worth Rs 62 crore with grants of Rs 15 crore under the BFL Scheme were approved in another meeting chaired by Tomar. Rameswar Teli, MoS, FPI, was also present in the meeting.

Tomar said that these projects would benefit the farmers and consumers. He urged the officials to expedite the implementation of approved projects. Twenty-one projects are likely to generate employment for nearly 12,600 people and benefit 200,592 farmers, said the ministry.

These projects are spread across the 10 states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Nagaland, Punjab, Telangana, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.

The Scheme for Integrated Cold Chain and Value Addition aims at arresting post-harvest losses of horticulture and non-horticulture produce and provide remunerative price to the farmers.

The Food Processing Ministry said that the eight projects approved in another meeting are likely to generate employment for nearly 2,500 people.

The objective of the scheme is to provide effective and seamless backward and forward integration for the processed food industry by plugging the gaps in the supply chain in terms of availability of raw material and linkages with the market, as per the statement.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)