The Government of Uttar Pradesh has initiated a plan to strengthen the smaller food processing units in the state. The plan, introduced by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI), would help the smaller units across India with technical knowhow and management skills.
Sources in the government of the northern state said that the plan would be utilised to set up micro food processing units in rural areas and also help the existing units.
“Our aim is to provide the units the knowhow about food processing machinery and products they can make using the locally available resources. Besides, we would be helping them understand the management of the unit and marketing of the products,” said an official with the state horticulture and food processing department.
State officials opined that this would help in limiting the food wastage and setting up more processing units in Uttar Pradesh. Further, the official stated that the state government was taking forward the call of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to double farmers’ incomes by 2022.
The official said, “The state has identified food processing as one of the sectors for development in the state, and districts have been identified in this regard for the production of sugarcane, milk, potato, mangoes, guava, etc.”
It is pertinent to mention here that MoFPI has devised a new scheme with Rs 3,000 crore corpus for the MSME (micro-, small and medium enterprises) sector with the help of the World Bank. This fund shall be used for making credit available to the smaller food processing units across the country and for transfer of technologies.
