Borgaon Food Park fails to attract SMEs

A number of medium enterprises, namely PBG International Pvt Ltd, Surya Fresh Food & Agro Ltd, Imperial Foods, Flora Foods and JVS Food, had proposed investment from Rs 2 crore to Rs 10 crore in the park for food processing, rolling floor mill, biscuit manufacturing, pickle processing and processing of pickle, jam, sauce, squash, fruit juice cordials, foods and cereals.

"No company has advanced after issuance of letter of intention of land allotment, the park is still awaiting their responses," VD Katarkar, general manger, district industry center Chhindwara told Business Standard.

PBG and Surya combined will generate approximately 200 jobs in the Food Park. Borgaon Food Park has been set up with an investment of Rs 8.44 crore of which Rs 4 crore is the Central government grant. The park has necessary infrastructure of cold storage and milk chilling facility.

The state government has expected a total of 100 crore investment in these parks that have consumed an area of 428 acres. The state government has already received the Central government grant of Rs 17.10 crore for the parks. On fresh investment during the last few months, Katarkar informed, "There are 16 units in Borgaon industrial area with investment ranging from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 1 crore, we are investing another Rs 12 crore investment from various industries, but we cannot tell about the gestation period. These companies have committed 300 direct jobs."

Safal, a Mother Dairy unit, is also likely to come up in the park for food processing unit of Rs 5 crore and another firm Samay Foods Private Ltd has proposed to set up a unit of Rs 2.5 crore informed Katarkar. "Power cut is major problem in Chhindwara industrial area and Food Park. Moreover, the district does not have skilled labours, bad roads are also a big hurdle," an entrepreneur said and informed two firms have recently been closed in Chhindwara due to labour problems.