All set to give a big push to the food processing industry in Punjab, the State Government is establishing five primary processing or collection centres and pack houses at various places for the proposed multi-product mega Food Park coming up at ladhowal in ludhiana. The Park is being setup by Punjab Agro Industries on 100 acres at a cost of Rs140 crore. The five collection centers would be setup at village Muskabad (Samrala), Saholi (Nabha), Kangmai (Hoshiarpur), lalgarh (Samana) and Babri (Gurdaspur). Besides, the State is going to identify five more such centers to develop world class fruits and vegetables clusters, said an official spokesperson. He said that fetching big investments in food processing industries was one of the top priorities and the State had launched its agro industrial and food processing policy to provide incentives to the entrepreneurs. “Punjab has tremendous potential and the State was launching special drives to make the farmers aware in this regard,” he added.
Spokesperson said that the State was also focusing on provisioning of basic amenities including individual quick freezing, dry warehouse, steel silos, controlled atmospheric chambers, pre-cooling chambers, ripening chambers, deep freezers, reefer vans, milk chilling units, weigh bridge, steam power generating units, food incubation centre and testing laboratory etc. Extraordinary endeavours would also be initiated for marketing of processed food, he added. Describing proposed mega food park at ladowal a game changer in agriculture, he said that 30-40 food processing units processing frozen fruits and vegetables, frozen french fries, milk, maize, bakery products, wheat pasta, tomato, chillies, snack food, eggs, malt, honey, haldi etc would be setup there.
He said that 60 acres of land would be developed for food processing units and remaining 40 acres for development of common facilities. He informed that about 700 people were expected to be employed in running and maintenance of core infrastructure. Besides, food processing units in the park were likely to provide direct employment to more than 1,800 persons with an indirect employment opportunities were estimated for over 28,000 persons.