Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Sunday inaugurated Cremica Food Park, which is the first mega food park of Himachal Pradesh.
“Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal today inaugurated Cremica Mega Food Park Pvt Ltd via video conference. The Park is located at Village Singhain Una District of Himachal Pradesh,” the ministry said in a statement.
The mega food park has been set up at a cost of Rs 107.34 crore.
This is the first mega food park operationalised in Himachal Pradesh. The inauguration took place in presence of Jai Ram Thakur, Chief Minister, Himachal Pradesh and Anurag Singh Thakur, Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Hamirpur, according to the statement.
The Cremica Mega Food Park will benefit people of Una district and nearby districts of Kangra, Hamirpur and Bilaspur.
The park has been set up in 52.40 acre of land at a cost of Rs 107.34 crore. The facilities being created by the developer at Central Processing Centre (CPC) of this mega food park include Multi-crop pulping line with bulk aseptic packaging (24 MT/ hour), Frozen storage (1,000 MT), Deep Freeze, Dry Warehouse, QC Laboratory and other food processing facilities.
The park also has a common administrative building for office and other uses by the entrepreneurs and 3 PPCs at Solan, Mandi, and Kangra having facilities for primary processing and storage near the farms.
Speaking on the occasion, Badal said the mega food park will leverage an additional investment of about Rs 250 crores in 25-30 food processing units in the park and generate a turnover of about Rs 450-500 crore annually. It will also provide direct and indirect employment to 5,000 persons and benefit about 25,000 farmers in the CPC and PPC catchment areas.
The minister said that the modern infrastructure for food processing created at the park will benefit the farmers, growers, processors and consumers of Himachal Pradesh and adjoining areas immensely, and prove to be a big boost to the growth of the food processing sector in the state.
Badal also said that the present government is fully committed to providing an environment that is smooth, transparent and easy for investors wanting to start an enterprise in India, and in a bid to make India a resilient food economy and the Food Factory of the World, the government has made food processing a major thrust area of ‘Make in India’.
The food processing ministry is focusing on boosting the industry so that agriculture sector grows exponentially and becomes a major contributor to doubling the farmers’ income and ‘Make In India’ initiative of the Government.
To give a major boost to the food processing sector by adding value and reducing food wastage at each stage of the supply chain with particular focus on perishables, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries is implementing Mega Food Park Scheme in the country.
The mega food parks create modern infrastructure facilities for food processing along the value chain from farm to market with strong forward and backward linkages through a cluster based approach.
Common facilities and enabling infrastructure is created at Central Processing Centre and facilities for primary processing and storage is created near the farm in the form of Primary Processing Centers (PPCs) and Collection Centers (CCs). Under the Scheme, the Centre provides financial assistance up to Rs 50 crore per mega food park project.