Failing to take advantage of food schemes

SHILLONG, OCT 4: Meghalaya is one among the states in north east which has failed to take advantage of the various central food processing schemes.

This was revealed during t the National Cold Chain Summit – North Eastern Region, 2016 on “Creating efficient cold chains for boosting perishable food industry in North East” held in the state’s capital on Tuesday.

“The state has not been able to take advantage of all food processing schemes of the centre like Mega Food Park, Cold Chain, Abattoirs and others,” Ministry of Food Processing Industry (MoFPI) Special Secretary JP Meena said.

He informed that the reason for this is lack of awareness as people are not aware of the schemes.

Emphasizing on the importance of such programmes, he said all the industry associations have been asked to organize programmes in the North East region to create awareness so that people can take advantage of the schemes.

The special secretary also informed that the ministry is inviting proposals of 100 Cold Chain projects and about 8 Mega Food Park projects in the entire country.

“We are expecting applications from the NE and we will give preference to the proposal from the NE because the region needs Cold Chain since there are only 6 to 7 projects in this region,” he said.

At present, there are 3 mega food park projects in NE – Tripura, Mizoram and Assam- and five cold chain projects – 1 in Manipur, 2 in Mizoram, and 2 in Assam.

Stating that the mega food park and cold chain project is a must for Meghalaya, Meena said, “The state should take advantage because Meghalaya is trying to develop horticulture and for horticulture you need storage preservation infrastructure.”

For setting up the cold chain projects, the centre is giving good subsidy for the NE up to 75 per cent of the project cost and this is a golden opportunity, he said adding if Meghalaya wants subsidy of Rs 10 crore, the project site should be around Rs 15 crore.

Similarly for Mega Food Park, he said the centre is giving subsidy up to Rs 50 crore.

“To take advantage of Rs 50 crore, we should have a project of the total cost of Rs 75 to Rs 80 crore and the land should be 50 acres,” Meena said while informing there are also smaller schemes for setting up food processing units at Rs 1 crore to Rs 3 crore which can also be taken advantage.

The last date for submission of application for availing the Mega Food Park and for Cold Chain projects is on October 7 and October 17 respectively.

He however said that only when the proposals are received then the ministry will know how many projects are from the North East region. New proposals for setting up of abattoirs are also expected in as such schemes are being implemented only in Sikkim and Nagaland so far.

He also informed that the ministry is also coming up with new schemes which include the agro processing cluster, which can also be taken advantage by the states from the region.-By Our Reporter