Marine Food Parks to be set up in 3 coastal dists of K'taka

Mangalore, Jan 13 (UNI) Union Food Processing and Industries Minister Subodh Kant Sahay today announced that the Ministry would set up a Marine Food Park each in the three coastal districts of Karnataka, with a grant of Rs four crore each.

Addressing a press conference here, he said the Ministry was ready to provide Rs 50 lakh or 25 per cent of the investments as subsidy to those interested in setting up such food parks. Lot of activities in the areas of horticulture and food processing could be taken up. Keeping this in view, the Ministry contemplated to set up sectorwise task force in the three coastal districts, which would take up several issues like providing infrastructure, production, processing and quality control and value-added products.

Mr Sahay said that after IT and BT, 2007 would be treated as Food Technology year. With a surge witnessed in retail outlets in the country with flow of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), there would be a huge demand for supply of raw materials and Karnataka should take an active role by amending the existing APMC Act for plans like demand-oriented plan and raw material-oriented farming plans. There was also a need for creating infrastructure jointly under Public- Private Partnership in all the sectors, he added.

Clarifying that the Ministry had no dearth of funds, he said the Ministry would provide Rs 50 crore as subsidy this fiscal for those coming forward to set up Mega Food Parks.

The Minister said the Centre had planned to set up 100 Food Labs across the country. Stressing that quality and cost should be given prime attention to ensure that the products were not rejected by foreign countries, he said the Ministry was seriously considering to set up quality laboratories in India jointly with countries like Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom and France.

He said the Government was anticipating Rs one lakh crore investment in the sector in the 11th five-year plan period.

UNI