Punjab food park awaits operational guidelines

The economic committee set up by the Centre has given its nod and it is learnt that very soon a meeting in this regard will be held in New Delhi, where the Cabinet would give its nod.

The estimated cost of the project is Rs 120 crore and will be developed under PPP (Public-Private Partnership) model. It is worth noting that Punjab, along with four other states, has been selected to implement this central scheme. Under the scheme, the Centre will provide financial assistance of Rs 50 crore and the rest would be shared between the state and the private holder.

"The economic committee set up by the Centre has given its nod for setting up of a Mega Food Park in Jalandhar and we are waiting for the operational guidelines from the union Cabinet. The approval from the Cabinet would take another one or two months. The disbursement of grants from the Centre would be initiated only after that," source in the Punjab Agro Industries Corporation Ltd said.

The Food Park Scheme will be implemented by a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), ideally a private ltd company in which the stakeholders would be investors in the park, producers, agencies, retailers, service providers etc. The backward linkages in the jurisdiction of a park will be organised under an appropriate institutional arrangement-a producers company or a society under Charitable Societies Act. Under the proposed arrangement, it is estimated that approximately 400-5000 farmers will get directly involved in the supply chain. The producer company or the society will be a shareholder in the SPV formed for implementing the food park.

According to the scheme, the mega food part would have a three-tier system in the supply chain (backward linkage). It includes producers group comprising of 20-30 self help groups (each self help group 10-20 farmers). It will also have collection centres, primary centres (products specific clusters) for each producer group with pre-cooling facilities.

Depending upon the need sorting, grading & packing facilities will be provided at these centres. Furthermore, these centres will have transfer of technology facilities as information kiosks, supply of inputs etc. About 20 such clusters will feed the Food Park (central processing facility).

The basic infrastructure would have general and technical infrastructure. The general infrastructure will include road, water supply, administrative building, internet, electric sub-station etc. The technical Infrastructure would have basic refrigeration plant with puff insulated panels (18,000 MT), pre cooling units, packaging R&D & quality control lab, variable humidity store (6,000 MT).