Vice-President of All India Congress Committee Rahul Gandhi will lay the Foundation Stone of Mega Food Park in his Parliamentary constituency at Amethi on coming Monday.
Dr Charan Das Mahant, Union Minister of State for Agriculture & Food processing will be the Guest of Honour while Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman Aditya Birla Nuvo will preside over the ceremony. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, who is also an invitee to the progamme is likely to share dais with Rahul Gandhi for the first time since they took up campaign for their Parties during last Assembly elections attacking each other.
In a official communiqué released by Congress here on Saturday, Aditya Birla Nuvo announced that it would set up the Shaktiman Mega Food Park in Jagdishpur at Amethi through Indo Gulf Fertilizers, one of its business arms. This is the first and the only service of its kind to be launched in the State. This facility spread over 72 acres, will have world-class infrastructure for food processing, coupled with backward and forward linkages for the entire food processing value chain. It will implement best practices in post-harvest management.
According to spokesman of Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee, the Shaktiman Mega Food Park will have a salutary impact on 40,000 farmers. It will offer essential services like dry warehousing, cold storage, a farmer friendly bank and fully equipped education and business centres. It will have 35 food processing units. The Shaktiman Mega Food Park is estimated to generate revenue of Rs. 450 crores and create 2,500 jobs. Furthermore, the ancillarisation process will lead to the creation of an additional 25,000 employment opportunities. Farmers, food processors and the local economy will benefit most from this initiative.
Spokesman further claimed that soon after laying foundation stone of Mega Food Park, Rahul Gandhi will address a gathering. Congress vice-president is also likely to meet people of the area to know their reaction before leaving for New Delhi. He is also scheduled to address first big rally in the State after last Assembly elections in Aligarh and Rampur on coming Wednesday. The main agenda of his meeting in to aware the move of Congress led United Progressive Alliance government for bringing land Acquisition Act as well as Food Security Act. It may be mentioned that Rahul launched a campaign against land acquisition from Tappal in Aligarh and assured that he will bring up a legislation so that land of farmers could be acquired at throw away prices. Hence he chose Aligarh to launch Party’s campaign for next Parliament elections from the same city.