Jaitley assures Centre's support for Bengal's food park

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Sunday assured the central government's support for the completion of West Bengal's Mega Food Park project in Murshidabad district.

Speaking at the inaugural of the Management Development Institute (MDI) campus in Jangipur, Jaitley said: "This institute will initially start in synergy with the food park, and hopefully one day as connectivity improves to this region, it will become a nucleus, maybe even for an industrial centre to be located close by. It will grow on the best rural talent."

The land allotted on lease to the MDI by the Jangipur Bengal Mega Food Park is located around 250 km from Kolkata. The campus was inaugurated by President Pranab Mukherjee Sunday.

"I am told the food park is almost ready. It only requires some last minute push in terms of support. We will speak to the department of food processing which has sanctioned enough funds this year so that they can be of some help over what has been already done," he added.

The food park project is a comprehensive industrial estate for food processing units where the industries would have provisions like cold storage, cold chain, effluent treatment plant, warehousing power connection, water facilities, sewerage and so on.

Jaitley said the presence of the MDI, the food park and an upcoming army base will spur economic development of the district.

He also hoped the MDI's skill development programmes will boost manpower resource in the region.

On Saturday, Jaitley held a meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee where he praised the Bengal government's positive approach towards the goods and service tax (GST) and assured the state's dues under various central schemes will be looked into.

"The chief minister has given me a letter of the outstanding amounts under the various (central) schemes which the state is entitled to. We are certainly going to examine it," Jaitley had said after his nearly an hour meet with Banerjee Saturday.