The Hindu Business Line : Govt setting up national food technology institute

New Delhi, Sept. 19 The Ministry of Food Processing Industry on Wednesday announced the Government’s intention to set up the National Institute of Food Technology, to address the growing manpower needs of the food processing industry.

Addressing the Indo American Chamber of Commerce’s (IACC) fourth Indo-US Economic Summit, Mr P.I. Suvrathan, Secretary, Food Processing Industry, said the institute, which will be functional shortly, will have technical collaboration with Cornell University, US. The students will be awarded B. Tech degrees with specialisation in management.

Mr Suvrathan also said that the proposed Food Regulatory Authority will be in place by the end of December this year, after which the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act (PFA) will become null and void on matters related to food processing.

Food parks

Unveiling the future plans of the Government in promoting the food-processing sector, the Secretary explained that the Centre will identify SEZs and AEZs for setting up mega food parks. This will be done taking into consideration the backward linkages to farmers, which will help in sourcing foods and vegetables from the farmers with lesser transaction cost.

In the case of meat processing, Mr Suvrathan said that keeping in mind the poor hygienic conditions of the abattoirs in the country, the Government is planning to set up 25 abattoirs very shortly and 50 more in the next few years.

The Government will also draw up a 10 year plan to tap solar energy for the food processing industry.

Farmer interaction

Referring to the grey areas in the sector, Mr Suvrathan said that there was a lack of institutions which could interact with the farmers and integrate them with the mainstream.

Therefore, the Government is proposing to bring together the farmers in a region to jointly bid for export contracts and to grow the required produce in adequate quantity. This would help them to pool resources for building components of supply management.

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