Govt takes various measures to boost growth of FPI sector: Sahai

New Delhi, May 15 (UNI) Minister of State for Food Processing Industries (FPI) Subodh Kant Sahai today informed the Rajya Sabha that in order to boost growth of FPI sector, the Government has allowed under Income Tax Act, a deduction of 100 per cent of profit for 5 years and 25 per cent of profits for the next 5 years in case of new agro processing industries set up to process, preserve and package fruits and vegetables.

The Minister said as per the report of Rabo India Finance Pvt Ltd, the processed food industry in India should aim to grow at about 10 per cent per annum between 2005-2015.

He said in the budget 2005-06, customs duty on refrigerated vans was reduced from 20 per cent to 10 per cent and in the Budget 2006-07, the Government has waived excise duty on condensed milk, ice cream, preparations of meat, fish, poultry, pectins, pasta and yeast and excise duty on aerated drinks has been reduced from 24 per cent to 16 pe rcent.

Food processing would be a priority sector for bank credit and NABARD would create a refinancing window with a corpus of Rs 1000 crore for agro processing infrastructure and market development, he said.

Mr Sahai further said the Government has already formulated Plan Schemes for providing financial assistance to food processing sector which are project specific and not State or area specific.

The schemes cover all the segments of this sector.

Under the scheme, financial assistance is provided at the rate of 25 per cent of the project cost in general areas and 33.33 per cent in difficult areas subject to a maximum of Rs 50 lakh and Rs 75 lakh respectively.

The Plan Scheme is aimed to promote creation of cold storage facilities to reduce wastage of perishable produce.

Replying on the capacity of seafood processing industry, the Minister informed that the industry in the country is utilising only about 20 per cent of the annual installed capacity due to the shortage of raw material and increase in domestic demand of fish, which is growing at an annual rate of 2.4 per cent. However, the utilisation goes up in peak seasons.

Mr Sahai said the government have taken various measures to improve the availability of raw material for better capacity utilisation and consequent growth of sea food processing industry.

UNI BBS CS GC1606