Centre seeks proposals for mega food parks from Odisha

Following the amendment of guidelines of Mega Food Park Scheme, Union Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) has asked the Odisha government to send proposals for developing new mega food parks in the state.

MoFPI has approved a total of 40 mega food park projects in as many as 23 states which are in various stages of implementation. The Centre missive to the state comes after the revision of the existing guidelines. “Based on the experience in project  implementation and feedback  from various stakeholders , the existing guidelines have been revised by the ministry,” J P Meena, additional secretary, MoFPI, wrote to Chief Secretary, Jugal Kishore Mohapatra. Under the revised guidelines, the state governments/state government entities/cooperatives have been allowed to take up mega food park projects without the requirement of forming a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) and are exempted from setting up a processing unit in the park. The ministry, which is implementing mega food park scheme to develop modern infrastructure facilities for setting up of food processing industries on cluster basis, has already invited fresh expression of interest (EoI) as per the amended guidelines.

“State government/state government entities/cooperatives may take advantage of this opportunity of developing Mega Food Park under the scheme and submit proposal of EoI within the prescribed date (April 30),” Meena added.

In the state, two mega food parks - Huma Coastal Mega Food Park in Ganjam district and MITS Mega Food Park at Rayagada were approved by the ministry.

However, the in-principle approval of Huma Coastal Mega Food Park has been canceled on the ground of delay in complying with the requirement of Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for this project and the state government has urged the Centre to reconsider the decision.