Bhoomi pooja for Jewargi food park in May

Gulbarga, Apr 10 (UNI) The bhoomi pooja for the Jewargi Agro Food Park, to come up at Jewargi taluk in this district at a cost of Rs 18 crore, will be conducted in the first week of May, its Chairman S S Patil said today.

Addressing mediapersons here, he said the Union and State Governments would provide a matching grant of Rs four crore for the proposed project, the fifth in Karnataka.

Mr Patil said the need of the hour in the food processing sector was to adopt an integrated approach in the entire goods supply chain, involving farmers, traders, food processors, distributors and retail stores, to work efficiently, be competitive in the international market and produce safe quality products.

The food park and its associated activities would act as the facilitator for the integrated approach and help in the agriculture and food processing sectors also. The basis of the food park concept was establishment of common service facilities for promotion of healthy and dymnamic food processing industries. Apart from making available basic infrastrucutre such as roads, power supply, potable water and commercial complex, it also provided technology facilitation and technical consultancy centre.

Mr Patil said food processing industry was of enormous significance for the country's development as it provided vital links and synergies between two pillars of economy -- industry and agriculture. The Indian food market was approximately worth Rs 2,50,000 crore, of which value-added products comprise Rs 80,000 crore. With the food production in the country expected to double by the year 2020, large investments were already going into agriculture and food-related infrastructure, food processing technologies and equipment. The food processing industry was witnessing a 20 per cent annual growth and exports of processed foods grew at around 14 per cent at 2.4 billion Dollars in 2003-04, he added.

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