January 07, 2002

'27'

RS.1560 CRORE WORTH OF FOOD PROCESSING UNITS APPROVED DURING 2001

    A large number of approvals for setting up of Joint ventures, industrial licenses and 100% Export Oriented Units besides provision of financial assistance to create infrastructure in the food processing sector and financial assistance in setting up of food processing industrial estates and parks are some of the highlights of the initiatives taken by the Food Processing Industries Ministry during 2001.

    The Ministry made significant achievements during the year in respect of approval of projects involving Joint Ventures / Industrial Licences / 100% Export Oriented Units. So far projects worth Rs.1560 crore have been approved with a foreign investment of Rs.456 crore. The Ministry approved financial assistance of Rs. 47 crores to 170 projects for creating infrastructure and food processing units. To boost foreign investment, approval of foreign equity up to 100% for most of the processed food items were made automatic.

    To give a boost to research and development in the Food Processing Industry, the Ministry also invested over Rs.10.00 crore in promoting research & development in product and process development. With the intervention of the Ministry, excise duty on processed fruit & vegetable were brought down from 16% to 0%. This step helped the availability of processed foods to the common main at affordable prices.

    The Ministry of Food Processing Industry has set a target of investment of Rs.1,40,000 crores to increase food processing level from 2% to 10% over a period of 10 years to generate direct employment of 75 lakh and to ensure better prices to farmers for their produce. The Ministry is in the process of setting up a network of food processing Industrial Estates/Parks in the country to enable entrepreneurs to set up cluster of food industries in selected areas of the country. The Ministry has so far approved 20 projects. Under the scheme assistance up to Rs. 4.00 crore is given for each park. The Ministry made efforts to bring about synergy between food parks and the agri-export zones. The Ministry took steps for setting up of a network of food laboratories in the country to ensure production of quality food items, especially for exports. A Codex Laboratory at CFTRI, Mysore, state of the art labs in the States of Punjab, U.P., Maharashtra and Delhi were approved by the Ministry.