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Kolkata , Aug. 28

THE West Bengal Government has targeted fresh investments worth about Rs 15,400 crore in the food processing sector within a couple of years.

Senior officials said that efforts were being made to achieve the target, particularly in the fruit and vegetable processing areas.

Presenting documents on the potential of the food processing sector in the State, at a meeting organised by Bharat Chamber of Commerce (BCC), the Director of Food Processing Directorate, Mr A.K. Mitra, and the Executive Director of West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC), Mr Atri Bhattachrya, said the State had the potential to grow fast in the area of processing fruit and vegetable because of abundant availability. However, they lamented that lack of infrastructure was hampering development.

Mr Bhattacharya said that multinational companies had shown interest to set up large food processing units, outsourcing semi-finished vegetables and fruits from small-scale units. He, suggested local investors should set up small and medium sized processing units to cater to the requirements of larger units.

Mr Mitra said the Food Processing Directorate had so far received investment proposals worth Rs 1,000 crore, of which projects worth about Rs 400 crore had been implemented.

He regretted that not a single vegetable process unit was yet to be set up, although the State contributed 24 per cent to the national vegetable production. He stressed the need to set up multipurpose cold storages and cold chain from growers' level to ultimate consumers' level.

In his welcome address, the President of BCC, Mr N.R. Goenka said the State Government should set up food parks at different fruit and vegetable producing centres and ensure remunerative prices to the farmers.

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