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Functioning of MoFPI comes under scanner with report presented to the LS
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Friday, 16 September, 2011, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Irum Khan, Mumbai
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The functioning of the ministry of food processing industries (MoFPI), created two decades ago to look into the needs of the food processing industry in the country, has been under fire from several quarters during the last few years.
If the everyday functioning has raised a huge question mark, speciality schemes have been no better. For instance, the much-publicised unveiling of the Vision 2015 plan, which happened a few years ago, did manage to raise a few eyebrows. It is said, this plan, prepared by the ministry, has managed to gain much publicity without a ready plan on hand.
These lacunae, in the performance of the ministry, once again came to the fore in a recent report placed by the Standing Committee on Agriculture in the 15th Lok Sabha session that concluded recently.
This report—Twenty First Report in the Lok Sabha on “Infrastructural Facilities for Development of Food Processing Industries – An Evaluation— was presented by Basudeb Acharia, a CPI-M MP from West Bengal, and chairman, Committee on Agriculture (2010-11), recently.
The Committee, taking into consideration the appalling state of food processing industry sector in the country and the pressing need to ensure remunerative prices to the farmers for their produce, had selected this subject for detailed examination and submission of report to Parliament.
The report stated that the levels of food processing in the country are abysmally low when compared with other countries and the commiittee observed that year after year, the benefits of a strong agriculture production base were being frittered away with monotonous regularity due to lack of storage and processing infrastructure. One of the reasons for the extant low levels of food processing in the country, among other things, was also the low access to credit for farmers as well as small and medium food processors.
The committee observed a glaring absence of an information system for compiling data and indices pertaining to the food processing industry sector in the country, in spite of the ministry being in existence for two decades now, which also reflects poorly on the planning and management capabilities of the ministry.
On mega food parks, the committee observed that due to the inordinate delay in approval of the Mega Food Park Scheme by the government, the ministry could obviously make no headway in the Scheme during the First Year of the Eleventh Plan (2007-08). During the Second Year also, since the approval came only halfway through, on September 11, 2008, the scheme could not be implemented with full vigour resulting in curtailment of allocations.
Also, the Mega Food Parks Scheme has not made much headway in the Northeast region (including Sikkim) and difficult areas (Himachal Pradesh, J&K and Uttarakhand). Only two mega food parks are under implementation in the states of Assam and Uttarakhand. This number is, neither, commensurate with the immense food processing potential of these areas, nor, in consonance with the policy of preferred treatment to these areas in the planning and developmental process.
The committee felt that the government needlessly curtailed the number of projects to be assisted under the Integrated Cold Chain and Preservation Infrastructure Scheme to 10, given the fact that the ministry had received an overwhelming 164 proposals. In its considered opinion, this is one scheme, which though introduced much later, has the potential of making a significant dent in the post-harvest crop losses incurred by the country year after year.
“The government should, therefore, have been appreciative of this fact and they ought to have gone out of way to entertain as many proposals as possible out of the 164 applications,” the report said.
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