Foodsectornews.com - Indian Govt. may invest Rs 1,500 Crores on Food Parks

Indian Govt. may invest Rs 1,500 Crores on Food Parks

Sunday, 17 June 2007

National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council has drafted a comprehensive plan to encourage investment & boost the use of technology in Indian food processing industry. Indian govt. is expected to spend Rs 1,500 crores

for setting up these parks. In cooperation with the food-processing ministry, the commission has also suggested that a uniform 4% VAT be applicable for processed-food across the country.

Nevertheless, a lot of objections were raised by the members of the industry in a meeting held at FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) on December 13, 2006. According to industry members, it's impossible to implement a uniform price for all products because taxation policies vary from state to state. And, this proposal appears to be too difficult to implement, since VAT hasn't even been adopted by many states.

As per a Research Analyst's view at RNCOS, who has recently researched a report on "

Process Food Market - Asia Pacific (2006-2007)", "The govt. proposes to establish jumbo food parks in India's 30 districts. Inputs will be provided to farmers by the government of India, so that they can produce goods according to market demands. The govt. also said that that around 50 modern abattoirs will be set up in a couple of years with the provision to fund viability gap."