Jharkhand gets its First Mega Food Park: Expected to benefit about 25,000 – 30,000 farmers

In order to give an impetus to the growth of the Food Processing Sector in Jharkhand, the first Mega Food Park in the State promoted by M/s. Jharkhand Mega Food Park Pvt. Ltd. was inaugurated today by Smt. Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Union Minister of Food Processing Industries at Village Getalsud, District Ranchi.

Speaking on the occasion, Smt. Badal informed that this Mega Food Park has been set up with the project cost of Rs. 114.73 crore in an area of 51.50 Acres. The park will have facilities of Multi Chamber Cold Storage, Dry Warehouse, Vegetable Dehydration Line, modern Quality Control& Testing Laboratory and other processing facilities for fruits & vegetables. The Minister expressed confidence that this Mega Food Park project will create a modern infrastructure for arresting post-harvest losses of horticultural and non-horticultural produce and provide impetus to the growth of food processing sector in Jharkhand. This Mega Food Park project will help in providing better prices to farmers, reduce wastage of perishables, add value to agricultural produce and create huge opportunities for entrepreneurship and employment for the youth of the State.

Shri Raghubar Das, Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Minister of State for Food Processing Industries and Shri Ram Tahal Choudhary, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) from Ranchi were also present on the occasion.

The Jharkhand Mega Food Park will benefit the people of Ranchi district and the people of nearby districts of Lohardaga, Gumla, Ramgarh, Garhwa, Koderma, & Hazaribagh etc.as well. This Mega Food Park has a Central Processing Centre (CPC) at Ranchi and six Primary Processing Centres (PPCs) are being set up at Lohardaga, Gumla, Hazaribagh, Belchampa, Domchach and Patratu to provide strong backward linkages. The Mega Food Park is expected to provide direct and indirect employment to about 6000 people and benefit about 25,000-30,000 farmers in its catchment area.

Under the guidance of Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, Ministry of Food Processing Industries is focusing on boosting the Food Processing Industry so that agriculture sector grows exponentially and becomes the engine of growth to drive the “Make in India” initiative. Ministry of Food Processing Industries has identified creation of modern infrastructure for food processing as a focus area and encouraging private investment. As a step in this direction, Ministry of Food Processing Industries has been implementing the Mega Food Park Scheme in the country to give a major boost to the Food Processing Sector along the value chain from the farm to the market with strong forward and backward linkages through a cluster based approach.