Chhattisgarh bets big on promoting-contract farming

Chhattisgarh is among only 13 States in the country which had notified the rules to implement the provisions of Agricultural Produce Marketing Regulation (APMR) Act to facilitate contract farming in the State, officials stated.The other States which had notified the rules are --Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan and Telangana) have notified the rules to implement the provision, officials stated.

Overall so far, a total of 21 States (Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab (separate Act), Rajasthan, Sikkim, Telangana, Tripura and Uttarakhand) have amended their Agricultural Produce Marketing Regulation (APMR) Acts to provide for contract farming. 

Agricultural marketing is regulated by the States’ Agricultural Produce Marketing Regulation (APMR) Acts. In order to regulate and develop practice of contract farming, the Central Government had been actively advocating to the States/ Union Territories (UTs) to reform their Agri marketing laws to provide a system of registration of contract farming sponsors, recording of their agreements and proper dispute settlement mechanism for orderly promotion of contract farming in the country. 

With contract farming having a direct linkage with supply of superior quality farm produce to the food processing units and ensuring better farm  produce prices for the farmers.Notably, the Centre has accorded final approval to two proposals in Chhattisgarh among 13 states for setting up of Mega Food Parks in various parts of the country including rural areas during the current Five Year Plan period till date. 

The approval were accorded to Indus Best Mega Food Park Pvt. ltd. for the project at Sarora and Bemta village in  Tilda Tehsil of Raipur District. The cost of the project is  Rs124.50 crore.The other approval was granted to Raipur Mega Food Park ltd. at Neonara village in Berla tehsil of  Bemetara district.The cost of the project is Rs126.12 crore.

These Mega Food Parks are private sector driven projects and responsibility of execution, ownership and management of these projects vests with a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) which is a company incorporated under the Companies Act. State Government/ State Government entities /Cooperatives have also been allowed to set up Mega Food Parks in the country by recent amendments in the scheme guidelines w.e.f. February 2, 2014. 

These Mega Food Parks are currently in the process of implementation. On completion, direct and indirect employment for about 30,000 persons is likely to be created by each of these Mega Food Parks. Making changes/modifications in the Scheme Guidelines is a continuing process and based on the experience of implementation of Mega Food Parks, the scheme guidelines have been revised by the Government from time to time to remove the hurdles in the implementation of the projects.

Notably, it may be recalled that the Chhattisgarh Government is in the process of establishing a Mega Food Park on 150 hectares of land in Dhamtari  district. 

The Chhattisgarh State Industrial Development Corporation (CSIDC) is implementing the project which is being set up at a cost of `150 crore.The Scheme of Mega Food Parks is aimed at providing modern infrastructure facilities along the value chain from farm gate to the market with strong backward and forward linkages. It is expected to facilitate the efforts to increase the level of processing of agricultural and horticultural produce, with particular focus on perishables, in the country and thereby to check the wastage.

The Scheme has a cluster based approach based on a hub and spokes model. It includes creation of infrastructure for primary processing and storage near the farm in the form of Primary Processing Centres (PPCs) and Collection Centres (CCs) and common facilities and enabling infrastructure at Central Processing Centre (CPC). 

The PPCs are meant for functioning as a link between the producers and processors for supply of raw material to the Central Processing Centres. CPC has need based core processing facilities and basic enabling infrastructure to be used by the food processing units setup at the CPC. The minimum area required for a CPC is 50 acres.

The scheme is demand-driven and would facilitate food processing units to meet environmental, safety and social standards. The financial assistance for Mega Food Park is provided in the form of grant-in-aid at 50% of eligible project cost in general areas and at 75% of eligible project cost in NE Region and difficult areas (Hilly States and ITDP areas) subject to maximum of `50 crore per project. 

It is expected that on an average, each project will have around 30-35 food processing units with a collective investment of Rs250 crores that would eventually lead to an annual turnover of about Rs450-500 crores and creation of direct and indirect employment to the extent of about 30,000 persons.