Eyeing greater employment generation in the food processing industry, the Central government is considering to equip youth with required skills by providing training to about 10,000 youth every year. The training of youth will take place in consultation with the industry and with support from National Skill Development Corporation.

The Ministry of Food Processing Industries has initiated measures to identify the areas where the industry lacks skilled workforce.

“In order make available the skilled manpower for the growing food processing industry the Ministry has decided to work towards training youth as per the requirement of the industry. Initially, every year about 10,000 youth will be provided training or skill upgradation to suite food processing sector,” said Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Union Minister for Food Processing Industries.

Under the first stage, ten sub-sectors like fruits, meat, dairy among others have been identified, following which NSDC will identify the skill areas to be selected for training.

Speaking at the sixth international summit on Food Processing, organised by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) in Ahmedabad, the Minister maintained that food processing industry has the potential to uplift farmers’ livelihood and improve their earnings. “It will also reduce wastage and improve the availability of commodities, which will eventually result into reduction in inflation,” added Kaur, who released a knowledge report on Indian Food Processing Industry, “FAD: The Golden Horizon””, prepared by consulting firm RNCOS.

According to the report, employment in registered food processing units is set to increase from 1.78 million in 2011-12 to 2.75 million by 2019-20. India’s food processing industry is likely to touch about Rs 1,164,000 crore by 2015, and Rs 1,650,000 crore by 2020, the report stated.

Ajit Kumar, vice-chancellor, National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management maintained that over the next couple of years, the food processing industry will grow at the faster pace than any other sector in the economy. “Against the current growth of over 10 per cent, the industry will achieve a growth of about 15-16 per cent in the next two years. We will see more foreign investment coming in this sector,” he said.

Major contributor to the growth of food processing industry will be processing of fruit and vegetables and ethnic and regional foods. “We will see more growth in the processing of ethnic foods like khakhra from Gujarat and idli from the south. Foreign investors may attract more for investments in ethnic food processing,” said Kumar.

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