dehradun

Updated: Apr 08, 2018 21:44 IST

Union minister for food processing industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Sunday said out of the 101 cold storage chains being developed in the country, 20 will be located in Uttarakhand.

Out of these 20 cold storage chains (in Uttarakhand), 16 have already been established and four are in the pipeline, said Badal, while speaking at the inauguration of a mega food park at Mahuakheda in Kashipur on Sunday.

This is the second private food park in Uttarakhand after the establishment of Patanjali food park in Haridwar. It took two years for setting up the ₹100-crore Himalayan food park, which is spread over the area of 50 acres.

“Soon, primary processing centres would be established at Ramnagar, Ramgarh and Kaladhungi. This will help in providing employment to the local people and farmers in this state,” Badal told the people gathered at the venue. She said that 42 mega food parks would be established in the country by 2019.

The union minister said that India comes first in the production of milk, but the irony is that only 10 percent is processed, whereas other countries process 80% of their produce. She said that the central government has allocated ₹6,000 crore for food processing and there is also foreign investment of ₹1 lakh crore in this sector.

Minister of state for food processing industries Sadhwi Niranjan Jyoti said that there were only two mega food parks in the country between 2008 and 2014, but now the number has reached to 11. “A total of 42 mega food parks would be dedicated to the nation by 2019, as Prime Minister Modi’s aim is to double the income of the farmers by 2022,” she added.

Anil Taneja, the regional director of PHD Chambers of Commerce and Industries, said that food parks could be a game changer in the states like Uttarakhand whose raw agro produce gets wasted for the want of processing centres and cold chains.

State finance minister Prakash Pant said the state government is seriously pursuing the vision of doubling the farmers’ income and various initiatives are being already taken by the government. ₹966.68 crore has been allocated to this sector in the state budget, he said.