"We have plans to set up 30 mega food-parks and an official announcement in this regard will be made in the next 10-15 days," Minister of State for Food Processing, Subodh Kant Sahai, said.
The public-private partnership route or special purpose vehicle mode would be adopted for these parks, he added. The centre planned to set up the parks from this year on, he said.
In the public-private partnership mode, the government would give Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million) per project as grant for establishing the park, while the rest would be contributed by private partners.
"We are going to give a grant of Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million) per park. The cost of establishing each park would vary between Rs 100-150 crore (Rs 1-1.5 billion)," the minister said.
The food-parks will create an integrated value chain from the farm gate to the consumer and will envisage complete backward and forward linkages along with common processing facilities, he said.
The government would establish 50 cold chain networks, including refrigerated vans all over the country, which will help the farmers enhance the shelf-life of their produce and retain their quality, Sahai said.
