New business opportunities for local farmers and agri- entrepreneurs are in the offing with the upcoming MITS Mega Food Park at Rayagada.
The grounding of the park has been expedited with Chief Secretary Gokul Chandra Pati having reviewed the progress in a high level meeting held recently. Taking stock of the progress made so far, Chief Secretary Pati has directed IDCO to complete permanent power supply system and common facility centers in the park within the specified time line. The project proponents have been advised to comply with all statutory and regulatory requirements for avoiding any possible bottleneck in future.
The Chief Secretary has also directed them to construct rain water harvesting structures in the park to store water for use and recharge of ground water.
Review shows that a SPV named MITS Mega Food Park has already been formed for establishment and running of the food park at Rayagada and it has started functioning. IDCO, Basantdevi Charitable Trust, Keventer Agro limited and Expo Biotech limited are the SPV partners. 50.5 acrers of the land required for the park has already been acquired. The fund of around `20 crore has already been mobilised against the total approved cost of `80.17 crore to be augmented from bank loan, Government grant and SPV share money.
SPV vice chairman Sriram Panda said that as of now 90 per cent of the construction work of MSME sheds has been completed. The construction of the overhead water tank of 1 lakh liter has also been completed.
The boundary wall of 450 mt has been raised against a total boundary of 500 mt. The balance 50 mt boundary wall will be completed soon.
The construction and furnishing of the site office of the park has already been completed. The approach road of 152 mt has been laid and it is being developed further. Around 20 investors and entrepreneurs have expressed interest to establish their food processing units in the park.
He informed the process for establishment of modern rice processing complex, cashew processing unit, and bottling plants for mango pulp and other fruits are in advanced stage.