Pawar was speaking after inaugurating the Srini Mega Food Park at Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh. Pawar said, "The ministry expects that this year another three projects will be completed in the country. This has further enthused me to upscale this scheme in this five-year plan so that more and more farmers and entrepreneurs from rural India get associated with the food processing sector, creating wealth for themselves and for the country."
He added, "Let me inform the budding entrepreneurs gathered here that the government has decided to further incentivise the food processing sector through various windows."
Elaborating on the importance of food processing sector and the initiatives taken by the government for its growth, the minister said: "Some studies have revealed that we might be loosing around Rs 40 to 50,000 crore for the lack of post-harvest facilities. With adequate processing facilities, much of this waste can be reduced with increasing remunerative price to the producer as well as ensuring greater supply to the consumer at appropriate price.
"A strong and dynamic food processing sector plays a signi?cant role in diversi?cation of agricultural activities, improving value-addition opportunities and creating surplus for export of agro-food products. To achieve the objectives of maximising value addition, minimising wastage and for generation of employment opportunities, the government has taken a number of initiatives," he pointed out.
"Keeping this in mind, my ministry has launched a National Mission for Food Processing and the initial feedback from various state governments is extremely encouraging. This mission has been launched with a philosophy of decentralisation, greater participation of the state governments, convergence of various programmes in this sector and implementing the schemes in the mission mode instead of routine vertical programmes. This scheme has adopted all the flexibility of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, which has been vehicle of agriculture growth during the 11th Plan and has been one of the model schemes with maximum participation of state governments and flexibility with no tailor-made schemes imposed by the Central government on the states."
He added, "I am also happy to announce that we have already started the admission process for the National Institute of Food Technology and Entrepreneurship Management, located in Haryana. This NIFTEM with IICPT in Tanjore are expected to fulfill the requirement of industry for skilled manpower in this sector."
