Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
* Focuses on controlling wastage to low food inflation during
address at Vibrant Gujarat Summit
Gandhinagar,Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Mrs. Harsimrat Kaur Badal today said with the possibilities available in the area of Food Processing, india would become ‘global leader’ by 2020.
While speaking at Vibrant Gujarat Summit here, Mrs. Badal said india has potential, environment and availability of requisite resources to lead the world on food processing front and the time has come to realize this dream of nation. She focused the need to bring down food wastage besides ensuring safe, nutritional and affordable high quality food to aam aadmi, which will definitely become a catalyst in curbing ‘food inflation’.
Mrs. Badal revealed the facts that how food processing industry was taking new strides and growing rapidly at almost 9 percent compared to 3.3 percent for agriculture and 6.6 for manufacturing employs, which has engaged around 60 percent of population directly or indirectly. She said statistics shows that food processing was contributing 13 percent of Indian exports despite processing only 10 percent of total produce. She said it was extremely critical to grow more from less so that we should enhance the food processing not only to control food wastage but also to provide safe, nutritional and affordable high quality food for general masses.
Describing food processing sector a major contributor to give new shape to India’s growth story, Mrs. Badal apprised the participants that every single percent increase in processing could generate additional employment for lakhs of people directly and indirectly. She said this sector could generate employment, curtail inflation, uplift farmers, reduce wastage and provides food and nutritional security, which should be given priority by our peasantry and food industries.
She said food processing industry have a detailed plan to set up mega and mini food parks across the country since the ministry has taken several initiatives to encourage industry in different states. She said the excise duty on food processing and packaging machinery has been reduced from 10 percent to 6 percent, financial assistance being through NABARD for units in food parks, food map for surplus raw material availability, investors’ portal and simplified application procedure.
The Union Minister also said that the agri land was reducing in the country vis-à-vis increasing population so we must work on ‘grow more, from less, to feed more’. She said with the endless availabilities and possibilities in growing food processing, we could witness less food inflation. She said her ministry was working hard to increase the current processing in fruits and vegetables from 2 percent to 10 percent in coming years as india has the potential to do the same by uplifting farmers, bringing down inflation.
More than 100 countries participated in the summit. Partner countries were Australia, Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore, South Africa, UK and USA. Prominent speakers were Ban Ki Moon Secretary General UN, John Kerry US secretary of state, Tshering Tobgay PM of Bhutan, Yair Shamir Agriculture Minister Israel, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries, Ajay Banga of Master Card, Kumaramangalam Birla of Birla group and representatives of all partner countries.
