Haryana notifies agri-business, food processing policy

In a bid to give impetus to food processing industry and generate employment opportunities in the State, the Manohar Lal Khattar Government in Haryana has notified the ‘Haryana Agri-Business and Food Processing Policy 2018’.

The policy aims to attract an investment to the tune of Rs 3,500 crore and generate 20,000 new jobs in the food processing sector.

One of the primary goals of policy is to increase the level of processing in perishables such as fruits, vegetables, dairy, and fishery by 10 per cent in the next five years, said Haryana Industries Minister Vipul Goel.

He said the new policy endeavours to give the required impetus to the food processing industry in the State and make Haryana a final destination of choice for investments in food processing sector. Further by establishing efficient forward and backward linkages, it aims to create greater employment opportunities across the entire food value chain, thus promoting agriculture and rural prosperity, he added.

At present, Haryana has more than 3,000 operative food processing units. The State is equipped with four food parks with two fully functional food parks at Rai and Saha.

Apart from this, mega food parks at Barhi and Rohtak are being set-up with the state-of-art common infrastructure facilities under the Union Ministry of Food Processing scheme of mega food parks.

Also, nine cold chain projects are currently being implemented under MoFPI assistance in Haryana. Out of these, four projects have already

been completed and five are on-going.

Giving details of the policy, Goel said that Haryana Agri-Business and Food Processing Policy lays equal emphasis on providing skilled manpower, robust infrastructure and conducive business climate for all round development of sector.

New drivers of growth such as market fee exemption, development of mini-food parks, cold chain and value added infrastructure, encouragement to farmer producer organisations, support to agri and food cooperatives, promotion of start-ups in agri-business space have been given due emphasis in the policy.

The policy also provides various fiscal incentives to individual units in Haryana, infrastructure augmentation measures across the value chain, regulatory simplification for the food processing industry and skill development initiatives. The policy is also promoting setting up of mini food parks to further augment the infrastructure measures in backward regions, the Minister added.

To promote registered farmer producer organisations (FPOs) and Agro/Food Cooperatives, the policy has proposed assistance of 25 per cent capital investment subsidy on Fixed Capital Investment (FCI) limited to Rs 1 crore to be made available to new units to be set-up only by registered FPOs and agro/food cooperatives in “C” and “D” category blocks.

Also, women entrepreneurs/women co-operatives/women self help groups (SHGs) shall be provided 8 per cent interest subsidy on term loan up to limit of Rs 12 lakh per year for five years per units across State. Apart from this, special assistance of 50 per cent of project cost for developing/acquiring packaging technologies leading to increase in shelf life of products, limited to Rs 20 lakh per unit is proposed.

The State Government will also constitute Haryana State Agro awards to encourage industrial units’ set-up in Haryana to nurture organic linkages with farming community thus enabling farmers to prosper along with industry. The award shall carry a cash price and a citation.

Notably, agriculture is one of the biggest employment generators providing employment to more than 50 per cent people in state. Even in case of industrial employment, share of agriculture based industries is more than 31 per cent.

Agriculture sector in Haryana contributed around 17.3 per cent to State’s GSDP (constant prices) in 2015-16. Food processing sector had been identified as a focus sector in the Haryana Enterprise Promotion Policy 2015.