Food processing scheme to continue despite Centre's delinking

After the Union government discontinued its budgetary support of 75 per cent share under the National Mission of Food Processing (NMFP) Scheme from the current financial year, the state government is considering to continue the scheme.

At a recent meeting, chief secretary GC Pati proposed to continue the scheme as per the prevailing NMFP guidelines with a new name, State Mission on Food Processing (SMFP), as the sector specific industries have elicited a good response from the banks and entrepreneurs for setting up of food processing units.

The government approval at the level of chief minister may be obtained to continue the scheme for next three years. MSME department will send a proposal to the government for approval in this regard, said the minutes of meeting held for the continuation of the scheme.

To facilitate the entrepreneurs and domestic agro-processing industries to establish and modernise food processing industries, the Union ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) had launched the scheme during 2012-13 under 12th five year plan. For promoting the food processing industries, the Odisha government has constituted State Mission Directorate.

The Centre, after delinking the scheme this year, has advised the state government to continue the scheme with the provision of additional 10 per cent funds provided to the states as per recommendations of the 14th finance commission. In the last three years, Rs 237 crore has been invested in the scheme. The requirement of funds to assist the committed proposals, projects approved by the State Level Empowered Committee (SLEC) and pending proposals received by the state mission directorate (NMFP) is pegged at Rs 45.74 crores. "Finance department may be moved to release the present budget provision of Rs 10.28 crore for 2015-16 under NMFP to clear the committed expenditure", the minutes added.