Govt may lift cap on number of food parks

To boost the food processing industry, the government has planned to lift the cap on the number of food parks to be set up across the country.

This is part of a plan by the Department of Food Processing to make the scheme to build mega food parks more attractive for investors in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-13 to 2016-17).

A senior official said the programme was being revamped because of slow progress in the 11th Plan.

Land and finance were major bottlenecks in speedy completion of food parks in the previous Plan, the official said. The government had approved 15 such parks in the first and second phases, while another 15 were approved in the third one.

However, only two mega parks have been made operational, while another four are in advanced stages of completion. Of the 30, as many as 15 were granted in-principle approval only last month, the official disclosed.