Third food park in Punjab will benefit farmers, encourage crop diversification: Harsimrat

Farmers are presently selling maize crop below MSP. Whether the food park will improve rates of crop is yet to be seen.

Stating that a large part of the state would benefited by initiation of maize processing in Punjab, Harsimrat Badal said the mega food park had also established three primary processing centers at Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar and Amritsar. She said these centers would create a readymade market for maize farmers. “The processing center at Hoshiarpur is ready while those at Amritsar and Jalandhar, which also have cold storage facilities besides dry warehousing and grading yards, are set to be completed soon. This will reduce wastage and ensure optimum value to farmers for their maize crop,” she added.

The former minister said Sukhjit Mega Food Park was among the three mega projects including one at Fazilka and Ludhiana, which she had been facilitated by the food processing ministry during her tenure. She said the ministry had given a grant of Rs 47 crore for the Phagwara park, besides obtaining various approvals on its behalf from State and central agencies.

The Bathinda MP said Punjab had received an investment of Rs 1,200 crore in the food processing sector during her tenure in the food processing ministry, which would benefit 1.25 lakh farmers besides giving employment to 40,000 persons. She said these initiatives had resulted in attracting private investment of Rs 800 crore through 41 projects including 19 cold chains, seven food testing laboratories, three clusters, four food processing units and four backward-forward linkage projects. “A grant of Rs 400 crore was given for these projects”, she added.