Food processing ministry urges states to convert land usage

The Union Food Processing ministry has urged the state governments to ease conversion of usage from agricultural to industrial land for the benefit of the industry.
"Conversion of land usage from agriculture to industry is a big bottleneck. We have urged the state governments to ease this process", secretary of ministry of food processing J P Meena said.
The government is giving a lot of thrust on the food processing sector, he told reporters on the sidelines of a CII session here today.
A special fund of Rs 6000 crore (Sampada) had been formed to promote various projects in the food processing sector.

Meena said the ministry had also urged the states that to treat small and micro units in the food processing industry to be a part of agriculture sector.
The other issue which the ministry had asked for is to declare the food processing industry as seasonal.

"If the industry is declared seasonal, then fixed charges relating to power and labour will be reduced substantially", he said.
This move would also lower the price of the final produce and improve viability of the units, Meena added.
Meena said that some mega food parks in the country were not doing well.
"This could be due to their location and indifferent attitude of the state governments", he said.

He said "The government is doing its bit for proper utilisation of the mega food parks".
Growth of the food processing industry in the country was higher than the GDP growth, he said, adding the exports of the products earned a foreign exchange of USD 31 billion in 2016-17.
"We hope to maintain the same growth rate", he said.
He also praised the West Bengal government for its focus on the sector.