Rajasthan gets first mega food park at Ajmer

New Delhi: The Greentech Mega Food Park Private Ltd, the first mega food park of Rajasthan was recently inaugurated at Roopangarh Village in Ajmer. The union minister for food processing industries, Ms Harsimrat Kaur Badal while giving details of the project during her inaugural speech informed that the mega food park which has been set up in an area of 85.44 acres, would have a central processing centre as well as well as four Primary Processing Centres (PPCs) at Jaipur, Nagaur, Tonk and Churu.

The park has been set up at a cost of Rs 113.57 crore and will benefit around 25,000 farmers in this as well as neighbouring districts.

The Minister added that the park would also have facilities for primary processing and storage near the farms and would not only benefit farmers of Ajmer but also those of nearby districts of Jaipur, Nagaur, Tonk and Churu as well.

The facilities being created at Central Processing Centre (CPC) of this Mega Food Park include Cold Storage of 5,000 MT, Deep Freeze of 2,550 MT, IQF of 2 MT/Hr., Dry Warehouse for Raw Materials 2,500 MT + Dry Warehouse for Finished Goods of 5,000 MT, Silos of 6,500 MT, Pack House of 10 MT/Hr, Steam Generator of 8 MT/Hr and other related food processing facilities.

The union minister said the mega food park would leverage an additional investment of about Rs 250 crores in 25-30 food processing units in the park and would eventually lead to a turnover of about Rs 450-500 crore annually. The Minister added that the Park will also provide direct and indirect employment to 5,000 persons and benefit about 25,000 farmers in the CPC and PPC catchment areas. She also said that modern infrastructure for food processing created at Park will benefit the farmers, growers, processors and consumers of Rajasthan and adjoining areas immensely and prove to be a big boost to the growth of the food processing sector in the State of Rajasthan.

The minister also highlighted how the Ministry, under the visionary guidance of Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, was focusing on boosting the food processing industry so that agriculture sector could grow exponentially and become a major contributor to doubling farmers’ income through implementation of projects under the flagship scheme of ‘Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana’and ‘Make in India’ initiative of the government.

She said the food processing industry ministry is creating mega food parks with modern infrastructure facilities for food processing along the value chain from farm to market with strong forward and backward linkages through a cluster based approach. Ms Badal also thanked the Rajasthan chief minister and the State government for the support extended by them in setting up the mega food park.