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Mumbai: Fifty-six Food Parks have been sanctioned so far in various states during the 8th to 10th Plan Periods. Food Park Scheme has been discontinued in the 11th Five Year Plan. The list of Food Parks is given in Annexure.
The Ministry of Food Processing Industries had engaged reputed external agencies namely EDI, Ahmedabad and Consulting Engineers Ltd. to carry out evaluation of the Food Park Scheme. As per the study report, most of these food parks were promoted by State Industrial Development Agencies, they were conceptualised in traditional industrial estate mode with no forward and backward linkages. This resulted in valuable real estate being acquired but utilised at low levels of efficiency.
Major reasons for the poor functioning of parks are mentioned below:
? Poor site selection
? Delay in providing basic infrastructure facilities like power, water, road
etc.
? Absence of strong backward linkages
? Weak linkages with the market
? Delay in release of financial assistance due to slow progress
? Poor management and implementation capabilities
? Lack of funding components like internal roads, drainage, environmental
control facilities and soiled waste management facilities etc. which are
important infrastructure required in the park.
In view of the experience gained in the implementation of the Food Park Scheme during 8th to 10th Plan periods and keeping the recommendations of the evaluation studies into consideration, the Food Park Scheme has been suitably revised and restructured into a new scheme for establishing Mega Food Park, which is a demand driven scheme with strong backward and forwarded linkages. Continuous efforts are being taken by the Ministry to revitalise the earlier Food Parks to make them functional. Progress of food parks is periodically reviewed with implementing agencies. Periodical physical inspection of food parks is carried out from time to time by the SNAs. Joint inspections associating SNA, ministry's representative and the bank are also conducted. State governments have been requested to coordinate and cooperate with implementing agencies so as to overcome the constraints being faced by food parks. A revitalisation-cum diagnostic study has been assigned by the ministry to the Tariff Commission in those cases where progress has been slow. The Program Management Agency (PMA) for the ongoing Mega Food Park Scheme has also been entrusted to visit the 20 selected old Food Parks to study and suggest the way out for their early completion and operationalisation.
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