`10,000-CR SCHEME TO BENEFIT 2 LAKH MICRO FOOD PROCESSING UNITS

The government is implementing a Rs 10,000-crore scheme to either upgrade or set up two lakh micro food processing units.

"PM Formalisation of Micro food processing Enterprises Scheme", implemented by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, aims at providing financial, technical and business support for upgradation and setting up of two lakh micro food processing units based on One District One Product (ODOP) approach in a period of five years from 2020-21 to 2024-25. The enterprises can be set up or upgraded through credit linked subsidy during these five years, MoFPI minister Prahlad Singh Patel told the Rajya Sabha.

The new scheme will benefit micro units as the Production Linked Incentive scheme announced by the government for the sector mostly caters to large entities.

Piruz Khambatta, MD of Rasna, said the new scheme is meant for small units run by farmers or self help groups. “The Rs 10,000 crore credit-linked subsidy scheme can reach out to a large number of micro units and this is significant in terms of employment generation.”

The government has also approved 792 projects out of a total of 818 project submissions for setting up food processing units under the Production Linked Incentive scheme. The grants in aid for the approved projects is Rs 5,792 crore. The PLI scheme for food processing has a total outlay of Rs 10,900 crore to support creation of global food manufacturing champions and support Indian brands of food products in international market.

The PLI scheme largely favours large food processing entities. Of the scheme outlay, only 2 per cent or Rs 250 crore will go into the kitty of SMEs, that too to those who are producing organic and innovative products.