Sun, Dec 5 11:35 AM
New Delhi, Dec 5 (PTI) While Southern states have
shown encouraging progress in bringing up food processing industries, the sloth Eastern states are a cause of worry for the government. Southern states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have shown encouraging progress in availing central government schemes to promote food processing units but slow progress in big size Eastern states is really a cause of worry, Minister for Food Processing Industries Subodh Kant Sahai has said. Unless and until we register good progress of food processing industries in states like Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal the drive to increase volume of processing of fruit & vegetables from 11 per cent now to 25 per cent by 2015 would be a difficult task, Sahai had said after inaugurating a Food and Drink expo here on Thursday last. Sahai said his ministry was focussing on these laggard states by writting to governments to pull up their socks and also through intensified campaign. In a written reply in Lok Sabha on Thursday last, Sahai had rolled out statistics to show the projects the ministry has approved. A total of 41 projects were sanctioned for Andhra Pradesh in 2009-10, the minister said. In Karnataka, 24 projects were given green signal while it was 41 in Tamil Nadu and 33 in Kerala during the period. On the otherhand, there were only two projects in Bihar, six in Orissa and 10 in West Bengal in the last financial year. The scenario was still more gloomy in the North-Eastern states. While there were only three projects approved in Arunachal Pradesh in 2009-10 it was six in Manipur, two in Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland (1 each) and Tripura and Sikkim (zero), the minister had said. Joint Secretary in Food Processing Industries, Ajit Kumar told PTI that his ministry has undertaken intensified publicity drive in Eastern states to educate farmers about virtues of the food processing units to further their income. Camps were organised at Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga in Bihar and Orissa capital Bhubneswar recently to popularise the food processing scheme which promises hefty monetary assistance for opening a unit, he added.
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