The Andhra Pradesh Government is coming out with a five-year plan for the food processing sector involving significant doses of private investments for infrastructure development.

The Andhra Pradesh Industries and Commerce Department is currently drafting the plan, which will be implemented from the next financial year, Sabyasachi Ghosh, Principal Secretary (Food Processing), said on the sidelines of a national summit on “opportunities in coal chain’, here today.

“We are almost ready with the draft, which we will submit to the Chief Minister for approval in the next two to three weeks,” he said.

Without disclosing the proposed outlay for the five-year plan, Ghosh said it would seek to attract private investment in infrastructure building, such as coal chain, warehousing and transportation, in a big way. “It will be through incentivising the private investors in the form of subsidies and other tax incentives. We are working out the investment modalities,” he said.

The proposed plan will cover the entire spectrum of the food processing sector, from mega and mini food parks, integrated cold chains and schemes for marine, aqua, diary and poultry products.

Another thrust area in this sector will be utilisation of renewable energy for running temperature-controlled warehouses and storages.

The State currently has a cold storage capacity of 1 million tonne, which is significantly below the requirement. It, however, stands first in terms of capacity utilisation with 92 per cent, followed by Karnataka (60 per cent) and Maharashtra (51 per cent).

The summit focussed on the challenges and opportunities before the coal chain sector. It was pointed out at the meeting that the country produced about 147 mt of vegetables, but has cold chain capacity for only nine mt, leading to huge wastages.

Similarly, last fiscal, India produced 127 mt of milk, but the estimated storage capacity is hardly 80,000 tonnes.

>amitmitra@thehindu.co.in

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