The Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) is planning to operationalise four Mega Food Parks during the fiscal 2022-23. The MoFPI, while its deposition before the Parliamentary Committee on Food Processing Industries for Demands For Grants (2022-23) hearing, said that this will create 4.49LMT of preservation capacity and 1.15 LMT processing capacity.
Also, under the PM Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises (PMFME), 25000 individual micro enterprise projects to be sanctioned along with seed capital assistance to 60,000 SHG members, 7 Marketing/ Branding projects to be sanctioned, and financial assistance to 37 National State level Institutions in this fiscal.
Under the Production Linked Incentives Scheme, the MoFPI plans 12 numbers of proposals to be supported under Ready to Cook/Ready to Eat (RTC/RTE) segment, 33 proposals under Processed Fruits & Vegetables segment; 11 proposals under Marine Products segment; 4 proposals under Mozzarella Cheese segment; 2 proposals for manufacturing innovative products; 10 proposals for manufacturing organic products and 71 proposals for promoting Indian brands, during 2022-23.
According to MoFPI, it plans to operationalise eight agro processing clusters with creation of 2.24 LMT preservation/processing capacity through 28 food processing units completed in this fiscal along with 47 projects to be set up with milk processing capacity of 13.10 Lakh Litre per day, cold storage capacity of 0.93 LMT & 171 reefer trucks under Integrated Cold Chain and Value Addition Infrastructure scheme and 11 projects to be completed with processing capacity of 1.125 LMT under Creation of Backward and Forward Linkages scheme.
The Ministry also told the ‘Committee’ that 10 food testing labs will be operationalised and 10 research and development projects aiming at five new technologies in food products/ machinery developed. MoFPI also aims at creating five cold storage facilities and three primary/secondary processing facilities with 0.15 LMT processing capacity.
During the last five years ending 2019-20, Food Processing Industries (FPI) Sector has been growing at an average Annual Growth Rate of around 11.18 per cent. The Sector constituted as much as 9.87 per cent of GVA in manufacturing in 2019-20 at 2011-12 prices. Food Processing Industry is one of the major employment intensive segments having a share of 12.38 per cent (at 3-digit of NIC classification) in the employment generated in all Registered Factory sectors in 2017-18.
The ministry said that according to the latest Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) for 2017-18, the total number of persons engaged in the registered food processing sector was 19.33 lakh. Unregistered food processing sector supports employment to 51.11 lakh workers as per the NSSO 73rd Round, 2015-16 and thus 14.18 per cent of employment in the unregistered manufacturing sector.
