Union Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Sunday requested Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to intervene and expedite completion of Punjab Agro Industries Corporation Limited (PAIC) mega food park at Ludhiana so that it could be inaugurated in the next fortnight.
Harsimrat, in a letter to the Chief Minister, said that work on PAIC’s mega food park at Ladhowal in Ludhiana had been delayed inordinately and that officials should be directed to complete the balance work at the earliest to add value to farm produce and create much needed job opportunities for youth.
She said that a review meeting, taken by her at the park site on January 11, had revealed that PAIC had not been able to come out with a tender for spiral freezer and dehydration line for seven months and that the same had been tendered two days before her visit.
“This is the first park of the ministry of food processing industry in which a private unit will come up even before the park becomes operational,” she said adding that no progress was being made despite the fact that she had held regular meetings to monitor the work and even kept the Chief Minister posted about the same.
Rs 117 crore project, which had received a grant of Rs 50 crore from the Centre, was supposed to be ready by June 2018. This delay is not only causing a loss to the State’s farm economy, but also harming job prospects of youth,” she added.
