Round Table with the Minister of Food Processing Industries, H.E. Harsimrat K. Badal
21. August 2017
The Minister of Food Processing Industries, H.E. Harsimrat K. Badal, will visit Germany on 21 and 22 August, 2017. The aim of the visit is to inform about business and investment opportunities in the Indian food sector with regard to upscaling food production of the country.
Together with the Indien Embassy we cordialy invite business representatives to participate in the discussion on relevant issues and questions with regard to current schemes and policies. Besides that, there is opportunity for a bilateral meeting prior to that - in case there are important issues which a single company would like to take up in a closed meeting. The Minister is known for being very open towards new approaches and new ideas, which bring the sector forward - to the benefit of the farming community.
The Ministry of Food Processing Industries is concerned with formulation and implementation of the policies and plans for the food processing industries, food safety of the country and upstream fields throughout the value chain. It aims at
- Better utilization and value addition of agricultural produce for enhancement of income of farmers
- Minimizing wastage at all stages in the food processing chain by the development of infrastructure for storage, transportation and processing of agro-food produce
- Induction of modern technology into the food processing industries from both domestic and external sources
- Provide policy support, and support for creation of Infrastructure, capacity expansion/ Upgradation and other supportive measures form the growth of this sectors
- Promote export of processed food products
Recenctly, the Ministry has issued new schemes, which have a strong corellation with agricultural production in the country:
- Scheme for creation of backward linkages for ensuring regular supply of raw materials through contract farming and by assisting in setting up of primary processing centers/collection centers at farm gate and modern retail outlets at the front end along with connectivity through insulated/refrigerated transport. The Scheme is applicable to perishable horticulture and non-horticulture produce such as, fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meat, poultry, fish, etc.
- Operational Guidelines for the Scheme for Creation of Infrastructure for Agro-processing Clusters under KISAN SAMPADA YOJANA (KSY): The scheme aims at development of modern infrastructure to encourage entrepreneurs to set up food processing units based on cluster approach. The scheme is to be implemented in area of horticulture / agriculture production identified through a mapping exercise.
- Scheme of Cold Chain, Value Addition and Preservation Infrastructure to provide integrated cold chain and preservation infrastructure facilities without any break from the farm gate to the consumer. It covers pre-cooling facilities at production sites, reefer vans, mobile cooling units as well as value addition centres which include infrastructural facilities like Processing/Multi-line Processing/ Collection Centres, etc. for horticulture, organic produce, marine, dairy, meat and poultry etc.
Further details on the announced schemes can be found here.
If you are interested to join the Round Table or would request for a bilateral meeting, please send an email to Mrs. Gumpert until Friday, 28 July. We will then get back to you with all further details.
We also want to point out that the Embassy organizes a business event subsequent to the round table discussion beginning at 17:30 hours. You may find further information here.
