Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare
Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare
Jharkhand would see ground breaking ceremonies of as many as 50 food processing plants during the state’s maiden two-day Global Agriculture and Food Summit (GAFS), scheduled to be held in Ranchi’s Khelgaon from November 29, officials said on Tuesday. “Seeing Jharkhand’s potential in vegetable sector, around 50 private companies had expressed interest to set up food processing plants in the state. After completing all required formalities, the companies will go for ground breaking ceremony on November 29,” said industry secretary K Ravi Kumar.
He, however, did not reveal the total investment on these projects and names of the companies. “We would release its details in a day or two,” Kumar added.
Jharkhand is a vegetable surplus state, which produces around 40 lakh metric tonnes vegetables annually against the requirement of 30 lakh metric tonnes. The state supplies around one million tonne vegetable to other states mainly to Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal every year.
Due to surplus production and shortage of buyers, farmers dump their produces every year. The upcoming processing plants would not only help increase farmers’ income but they would also get market, officials said. Industry department was hoping that Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Food Park (PFF) would come with an investment proposal during the event for the state’s multi-crore mega food park (MFP) at Ranchi’s Getalsud, which was declared non-performing asset (NPA) by Allahabad Bank. “We had initial round of discussion with the PFF chief executive officer for the multi-crore mega food park. He has shown interest in the project. We hope the investment proposal to get shape during the two-day event,” industry secretary said. A public-private-partnership (PPP) project with the ministry of food processing industries of Government of India, the MFP was established on 56 acres of land at a cost of Rs 114.73 crore. Allahabad bank had given loan of Rs 33.95 crore while the Centre had allotted Rs 43 crore for the project.
The Jharkhand Mega Food Park Private Limited (JMFPPL), a special purpose vehicle (SPV), was executing the mega project and developed common facilities— power substation, cold storage, ware house, packaging unit, canteen, common effluent treatment plant.
The food park was formally inaugurated by the Union minister of food processing Harsimrat Kaur and
state chief minister Raghubar Das on February 15, 2016. However, the promoter of MFP died few months back and the project turned idle. Recently, the bank declared it an NPA. Department of industry asked the bank to evaluate the assets so that potential investors could be attracted. The bank is preparing for auction of the assets, while the department is hoping to get investor in the food summit.
Embryo transfer technology is extremely effective for increasing production and breed improvement
Union Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Minister Shri Radha Mohan Singh has said that agriculture and dairy business complement each other for the social and economic upliftment of cattle farmers. To achieve this objective, it is essential to have good quality livestock breed in order to increase production. Speaking on the occasion of “National Milk Day” he said that under the Rashtriya Gokul Mission (RGM), 10 semen centres have been identified for the production of Sex Sorted Semen for the production of more female animals. Proposals for two centres, in Uttarakhand and Maharashtra, have been approved. The foundation stone of sex sorted semen centre in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand was laid in June 2018. Besides, INDUSCHIP has been developed for genomic selection of indigenous breeds and 6000 dairy animals have been genetically evaluated using it. He informed that under the RGM, 20 Gokul Grams in 13 states at a total cost of Rs 197 crore have been approved. Apart from this, Under the Pashu Sanjivni component of the scheme, 9 crore milch animals are being identified using UID (Unique Identification Device). He said that the credit for India becoming the world’s largest milk producer goes to livestock farmers and the various schemes of the Indian government. He further added that 20 Embryo Transfer Technology (ETT) centres are being established in the country and proposal of 19 centres have been approved so far. These centres are producing 3000 high genetic merit bulls of indigenous bovine breeds.
Shri Singh added that in an effort to double farmers’ income, the government launched e-pashuhaat (https://epashuhaat.gov.in/) portal in November 2016. The portal is playing a crucial role in connecting farmers, breeders and other agencies to trade in disease-free germplasm, namely live animals, frozen semen and embryos. Now, a mobile application - e-pashuhat (GPMS Transportal) - has been created and integrated with UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) application. Farmers can download UMANG app on their mobile phone from Google Play store and Apple App store. They can now know the availability of disease-free germplasm services within 100KM radius of their location. So far, e-pashuhaat (GPMS Transportal) App has been automatically downloaded and available for 1 crore registered UMANG users.
The Minister informed that this year a new scheme the Dairy Processing & Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF) has been initiated by the government. It aims to benefit 95 lakh milk producers in 50,000 villages and provide both direct and indirect employment to many skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers. He said that under the Dairy Entrepreneurship Development Scheme, there is a provision to provide financial assistance for providing self employment opportunities in various activities from milk production to marketing. Under this, 3, 31,314 dairy units have been established and the government has provided subsidy of Rs 1401.96 crore. Apart from this, World Bank-funded National Dairy Plan Phase-I, National Programme for Dairy Development (NPDD) etc. are being operationalised by the state governments through milk cooperative / federations related to the state.