Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Develo-pment Corporation (HSIIDC) will develop its third Mega Food Park at Barhi (District Sonepat), which is strategically located on Delhi-Ambala national highway. The Centre is also contributing in this project in shape of grant.
Earlier, the HDIIDC had successfully set up of two fully developed Food Parks — one at Rai (Sonipat) and another at Saha in Ambala district.
Managing Director, HSIIDC Vineet Garg said that food processing industry is a sunrise industry in today’s scenario. The potential for this sector has grown enormously. “A lot of opportunities exist in National and International Market for processed food products.
Therefore, this initiative of HSIIDC will be having a long bearing effect on India’s food processing industry,” he said.
Garg informed that the State, being strategically located covering the national Capital from three sides, offers ideal location for Food Park. This will benefit not only Haryana but also the neighbouring States of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab and Western Uttar Pradesh as these State produces a lot of fruits and vegetables and Haryana is the only the Gateway for transporting these product to various national and international markets.
He added that food processing technologies can be very useful as a huge quantity of fruits and vegetables go waste every year because of short availability of processing and storage facilities.
Due to this initiative of HSIIDC, new food processing units/industry will come up at a strategic location which would be able to handle food and food product for processing and storage thus mitigating the national wastage of food and food product.
It would also further increase the employment opportunities in the region.
The Mega Food Park Project of HSIIDC has been approved in Principle for Central Government grant of `50 crore.
Mega Food Park is being developed with an investment of `177 crore. Once implemented, there will be about 100 manufacturing units in the area and these industries put together will be giving employment to about 10,000 people directly and indirectly.
HSIIDC is developing this Mega Food Park in 75 acres in Industrial Estate, Barhi which is strategically located at NH-I. A provision has been made to allot about 100 plots to Food Processing Units in this area. A State of art, Common Facility Centre (CFC) will be developed in nine acres area by HSIIDC to cater to common needs of industries to be set up in this Park.
In addition to this, three Primary Processing Centres (PPCs) will be created in Rohtak, Panipat and Karnal to cater to local needs of farmers where sourcing of their crops can be made from farmers at their door step.
They can increase their income many times by adding value through processing of food, he added.
HSIIDC’s Mega Food Park is one of the first 4 parks being considered by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries for final sanction, out of the total 15 such parks which were given ‘In principle’ sanction earlier, Garg added.