Question : Mega Food Park

(a) the guidelines and salient features of Mega Food Parks (MFPs) Scheme;

(b) whether a number of MFPs are sanctioned, approved and functional/ operational at present in various parts of the country and if so, the details and the status thereof, State and location-wise along with the States which are still uncovered under the MFP Scheme;

(c) The details of funds allocated and utilized for the purpose, so far, State-wise;

(d) whether the Government has set any targets to develop basic infrastructure of MFPs across the country, if so, the details thereof and the setps taken/ proposed to be taken by the Government to achieve the targets;

(e) whether the Government has received several proposals to allow some States and private firms to set up some new MFPs on the basis of public private partnership for the development and promotion of food processing sector and thereby creating employment opportunities in this sector; and

(f) whether the Government recently proposes to change the objectives and guidelines for the establishment of such food parks and if so, the details thereof?

(a): The salient features of the schemeare at Annexure-I. The detailed Guidelines of the Scheme of the Mega Food Parks (MFPs) are also available on Ministry’s website: www.mofpi.nic.in

(b)& (c): Out of the total 42 Mega Food Parks sanctioned by the Government, 37 Mega Food Park projects have been accorded final approval and 5 Mega Food Park Projects have been accorded in-principle approval in 24 States in the country.Out of these, presently 9 projects are functional/ operational. Presently, 5 States in the country i.e. Goa, Mainpur, Meghalaya, Sikkim and Tamil Nadu do not have any Mega Food Park project established under the Scheme of Mega Food Parks.

The funds under the Mega Food Park Scheme are not allocated state-wise. However, theState-wise details of the projects including name of the project, location, funds (grant-in-aid)sanctioned and releasedalongwith present status of implementation of these Mega Food Parksis at Annexure-II.

(d): Government has approved 42 Mega Food Parksto develop modern infrastructure facilities for food processing along the value chain from farm to marketacross the country.State-wise details of theapproved Mega Food Parks are at Annexure-II. Further, the Ministry has taken various necessary steps to ensure timely implementation of the Mega Food Park projects:

(i) A new Central Sector Scheme for “Creation / Expansion of Food Processing & Preservation Capacities” under PRADHAN MANTRI KISAN SAMPADA YOJANA has been approved by the Government to incentivize investment by food processing entrepreneurs by way of setting of units in the park.
(ii) Issues have been taken up with various concerned Departments/ Agencies of the State Governments to expedite statutory clearances and to remove the bottlenecks in implementation of projects. State Governments and Ministry of Finance have been requested to provide fiscal incentives to the Mega Food Park projects.
(iii) Issues have been taken up with the Banks/ Financial Institutions (FIs) to expedite sanction of term loan to the projects.
(iv) Government of India has created a fund of Rs. 2,000 crore with NABARD to provide affordable credit to Mega Food Parks and entrepreneurs setting up units in these Parks.
(v) State Governments have been involved in selection and monitoring of the projects. State Government representative is nominated in the Board of SPV.
(vi) Amendments have been made in the scheme guidelines of Mega Food Park to make them investors friendly.

(e)& (f): The Mega Food Park projects are not established/ implemented on Public Private Partnership model. The responsibility of execution, ownership and management of the Mega Food Park is vested with a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). The project is selected by inviting proposals from the eligible agencies through Expression of Interest (EOI) published in the leading newspapers and uploaded on the Ministry’s website. Based on the feedback received from various stakeholders/promoters, Ministry amends the guidelines of the scheme of Mega Food Parks time to time to make it more investors friendly. Lastly, the guidelines have revised on 21.07.2016.