Madhya Pradesh gets its first mega food park

In order to give an impetus to the growth of the Food Processing Sector in Madhya Pradesh, the first Mega Food Park in the state promoted by M/s Indus mega Food Part Pvt. Ltd was inaugurated by Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Union Minister of Food Processing Industries at Village Panwa, Tehsil Kasarwad, District Khargone. A 2nd Mega Food Park has been sanctioned by the Ministry in Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh, which will be ready in the next 24 to 30 months. Badal informed that this Mega Food Park has been set up with the project cost of Rs.127.70 crore in an area of 53.78 acres. The park will have facilities of 3000 MT Cold Storage, 9000 MT Dry Warehouse, Instant Quick Freeze (IQF) 5 MT per hour, modern Quality Control lab and other processing facilities for fruits and vegetables. The Minister expressed confidence that this Mega Food Park project will create a modern infrastructure for arresting post-harvest losses of horticultural and non-horticultural produce and provide impetus to the growth of food processing sector in Madhya Pradesh. This Mega Food Park project will help in providing better prices to farmers, reduce wastage of perishables, add value to agricultural produce and create huge opportunities for entrepreneurship and employment for the youth of the State. Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Minister of Urban Development & Parliamentary Affairs M.Venkaiah Naidu, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Minister of State for Food Processing Industries and Subhash Patel, Member of Parliament from Khargone were also present on the occasion. The Indus mega Food Park will benefit the people of Khargone district and the people of nearby districts of Indore, Ratlam, Ujjain, Dhar, Khandwa, Dewas&Barwani as well. This Mega Food Park has a Central Processing Centre at Khargone and three Primary Processing Centres are being set up at Bedia, Ratlam and Ujjain to provide strong backward linkages. The Mega Food Park is expected to provide direct and indirect employment to about 6000 people and benefit about 25,000 to 30,000 farmers in its catchment area. Under the visionary guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Ministry of Food Processing Industries is focussing on boosting the Food Processing industry so that agriculture sector grows exponentially and becomes the engine of growth to drive the “Make in India” initiative. As a step in this direction, Ministry of Food Processing Industries has been implementing the Mega Food Park Scheme in the country.