Orissa to promote food processing units for employment generation

Bhubaneswar, Oct 4 (UNI) The Orissa government has decided to promote food processing units in the state to generate employment opportunities for a large number of people.

Official sources said here today that inititally the government would focuss on six items - rice, maize, sugar, cashewnut, fisheries and poultry, produced in the state in huge quantities, and include other items later.

Though food processing and other agro-based industries had a great employment potential in the state, the sector had not yet been fully explored till now, the sources said.

The government had decided to conduct resource mapping in different districts to assess the potential of the focus items, including the area of their cultivation, quantity of production and marketing.

The mapping would be done either by the departments concerned or by agencies selected by them.

The state-owned Agriculture Promotion and Investment Corporation of India Ltd (APICOL) would serve as the nodal agency for the purpose, the sources said.

The government had also decided to constitute a task force to monitor the progress and promote the food processing units in the state.

The government suggested the central Electricity Authority to revise its tariff structure for the farmers' and processing industries' benefit and to set up a wing of the Central Food Technology Research Institute (CFTRI) in the eastern part of the country to provide technical information to the prospective entrepreneuers.

UNI