The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Six more food parks to target upmarket consumers in the city

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Wednesday, Aug 20, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Six more food parks to target upmarket consumers in the city

S. Rajendran

Wine grapes and other horticultural produce will be sold at the centres

Government is formulating a new food processing and food park policy
All the food parks will come up under the
PPP model

Bangalore: A new food park, one among the six food parks planned for the State, is to come up at Doddaballapur near Bangalore, mainly to process wine grapes and a variety of horticultural produce. Horticultural crops grown in the districts adjoining Bangalore and Kolar would be graded and packed at the food park. This is to target the upmarket consumers in Bangalore and neighbouring cities like Chennai.

Another such park is also planned at Bijapur to serve not only the northern districts of the State but Pune and Mumbai. A large part of the high quality grapes grown in Bijapur and Bagalkot are graded and packed in Maharashtra and the State Government has sought to take over this business for the benefit of the growers here.

Sources in the State Secretariat told The Hindu that the Government is coming out with a new food processing and food park policy to enable the farming community to obtain reasonable prices for farm produce. The plan is to have at least one food park in each district particularly those where horticultural crops are grown in a big way.

Facilities

The food parks will have common facilities for ensuring uninterrupted power supply and water supply, cold storages and ice plant, warehousing facilities, effluent treatment plant, quality control, analytical laboratories and major processing facilities like fruit concentrate and pulp-making units. All the food parks will be on the PPP (Public-Private Partnership) model.

For the farmers

This has been described by Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa as another way of serving the interests of the farming community by ensuring that farmers obtain a better price for their produce. The food park programme and value addition to the horticultural produce is the brainchild of the Principal Secretary to the Government, Commerce and Industries, V. Umesh, and a team of officials has been working on this programme. The Managing Director of the Karnataka State Industrial Investment and Development Corporation, V. Madhu, has been appointed the nodal officer for the food parks.

As part of the food park policy, which would be a part of the midcourse correction to the State Industrial policy, six new food parks in the districts of Bangalore Rural (Doddaballapur), Kolar, Bagalkot, Bijapur, Shimoga and Davangere are scheduled to come up.

Each park would be located on around 100 acres of land. This is apart from the six food parks which were approved by the Dharam Singh Government of which three parks are scheduled to be commissioned shortly.

Karnataka will also exert pressure on the Centre to share the cost of establishing these parks.

The Centre had stopped funding parks for more than a year. Further, as per the Centre’s guidelines, food parks have to be commissioned within a stipulated time failing which the Centre’s participation in funding would cease.

Sources said the new food park policy is being designed in accordance with the central policy on promoting the food processing industry in a big way.

Top officials of the State Government are in touch with the Union Ministry of Food Processing to ensure that Karnataka takes the lead in food processing.

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