The Hindu Business Line : Food processing vision aims to double growth

THE Government on Thursday unveiled a 10-year vision document for the food processing sector, envisaging investment in infrastructure, processing capacity and market development to the tune of Rs 99,700 crore.

Implementation of the vision, piloted by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, could mean the sector growing by about 200 per cent, from Rs 4,60,000 crore at present to Rs 13,50,000 crore by 2014-15.

Spelling out a nine-point strategy for achieving these targets, the Food Processing Minister, Mr Subodh Kant Sahay, said the Government was targeting an increase of Indian processed foods share in the global market to three per cent by 2015.

``The vision document would help realise the potential of the food processing industries by increasing the share in GDP and per capita income of the farmers,'' he told newspersons here.

The vision document also aims at raising the level of processing of perishable foods from six per cent to 20 per cent and value-addition level to 70 per cent from a mere seven per cent at present.

The minister said the sector could grow to the targeted size in the next decade only when consumption of processed foods grows at about 10 per cent per annum. He said the sources of the envisaged investment would be a combination of equity from processing industries, debt from financial institutions, foreign direct investment and Government funding.

On the export front, lack of a brand image and low product innovation hamper growth.

Food tech management institute to be set up

Mr Subodh Kant Sahay also announced setting up of an institute for providing research and development backup for the manpower needed by the industry. To be called the National Institute of Food Technology Management (NIFTM) it would need an investment of about Rs 300 crore.

Also on the anvil are five mega food parks in the five corners of India to boost the food processing industry. At present, there are 49 food parks operational across the country. While acknowledging that a majority of these 49 food parks were not working at optimal potential, the Minister said the Government has mandated an institute in Ahmedabad to find out the problems being faced by these.

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