Odisha seeks 'designated' status for three food parks

The state govt has proposed Centre to declare three food parks in the state as designated food parks to get concessional credit from Nabard

The state government has proposed the Centre to declare three food parks in the state as designated food parks to get concessional credit from National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard).

Earlier, the state MSME (micro small and medium enterprises) department had requested to designate four industrial estates having food processing industries as designated food parks for the purpose of the availing the credit.

The food parks proposed are Khordha food park at Khordha Industrial Complex, Agro Industrial Estate for maize (Nabarangpur), Jagatpur food park at Jagatpur industrial estate in Cuttack and Mancheswar food park at Mancheswar industrial estate in Bhubaneswar.

"It is very kind of you to have informed that all four industrial estates have been notified as designated food park for the purpose of availing the credit from Nabard. But as per communications received from Union ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) except Khordha industrial estate, MITS mega food park and Sea food park at Deras, the rest three have not been declared as designated food parks to receive the credit support from Nabard", Panchanan Dash, secretary , MSME department wrote to Rangalal Jamuda, secretary, MoFPI.

Dash has requested Jamuda to notify the other three industrial estates as designated industrial park for availing credit through Nabard.

"After notification, the food processing units at these parks will be eligible for credit from Rs 2,000 crore fund created at Nabard at a concessional rate", said an official.

It may be noted that the Union government in General budget -2014, had announced setting up of a special fund of Rs 2000 crore in Nabard to provide affordable credit to agro-processing units being designated as food parks. The fund has been established in Nabard by Reserve Bank of India. The financial assistance will be provided by Nabard either directly or through consortium arrangements with other financing agencies.

State governments, entities promoted by state and central governments, joint ventures, cooperatives, federation of cooperatives, special purpose vehicles, farmers' producers organizations, corporates, companies, entrepreneurs can avail loans from the fund for establishing the designated food parks and also for setting up of individual food and agro processing units in these complexes.