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Our Bureau

New Delhi , June 30

The Union Government has decided to constitute an Advisory Committee to examine and close the gaps in the entire food chain, along with the formation of a sub-committee with representatives of all the stakeholders to elicit suggestions for removing investment hurdles in the law and licensing of contract farming and the food retail business.

The Minister for Food Processing Industries, Mr Subodh Kant Sahai, said this at a press briefing following a round table meet with Chief Executive Officers of food retail companies.

The round table was organised by FICCI along with the Ministry of Food Processing Industries.

Integrated Food Bill

Mr Sahai said the Integrated Food Bill would be enacted in the monsoon session of Parliament. The Bill seeks to integrate into a common law all the 13 food laws that are currently enforced by nine different ministries.

Mr Sahai said the Prime Minister would decide on a single Ministry that would enforce the integrated food law.

Dr P.I.Suvrathan, Secretary in the Ministry, said there were a couple of amendments that would be brought to the Bill, like on matters of the representation of farmers and the standard by which food products would be examined.

He further said the Ministry had decided to decentralise the working of the 52-odd food parks around the country by bringing the processing centres closer to the farms and urban towns where the potential to employ local youth, and marketing to the consumers was high. It has also been decided to popularise `street food' by putting in place an automatic and transparent arrangement whereby clear standards and quality of food would be prescribed so that clean street food could be consumed by the general populace.

`Industry status for retailers'

FICCIurged the Government to boost the food retail business by conferring industry status to retailers and providing single window clearance for all licences for stores at the local level. It also said that retailers should be taken on board for implementation of VAT and infrastructure bottlenecks should be removed.

More Stories on : Contract Farming | Foods & Food Processing | Retailing | Industry Associations

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