The Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Kinfra)’s mega food park, one of the Corporation’s ambitious projects, is all set to be officially opened this month.
The park, located in 79.42 acres of land spread over Elapully and Pudussery villages of Palakkad district, was implemented as part of the Mega Food Park Scheme of the Union Ministry of Food Processing Industries.
“The project work began two years ago and has been completed now. We are one of the few States to complete construction so early. The inauguration is expected to be held sometime after September 20, once we get the dates of the Chief Minister and the Union Minister for Food Processing,” Santhosh Koshy Thomas, Managing Director, KINFRA told The Hindu.
The food park aims at providing a mechanism to link agricultural production to the market by bringing together farmers, processors and retailers to maximise value addition, minimise wastage, increase farmers income, and create employment opportunities particularly in the rural sector. Out of the total project cost of ₹102.13 crore, the Union ministry provided a grant-in-aid of ₹50 crore while the Kinfra has also availed itself of a loan assistance through the State government under the food processing fund from NABARD.
The food park provides common facilities that are specifically designed for the food processing sector called the ‘core processing infrastructure’ such as cold storage, ripening chamber, warehouses, pack house, spice processing facility, and quality control laboratory. Developed land in the CPC is offered as ready-to-use plots for allotment to prospective entrepreneurs/investors from the food processing sector under a 30-year-long lease, renewable up to a period of 90 years against a one-time payment of land lease premium. The park also provides ready-to-use built-up space in Standard Design Factory Building for ‘plug and play’ model of business operations for a period of 10 years against payment of monthly lease rentals.
As of now, 30 units have been allotted land, out of which two units have started production and 11 units under various stages of construction. The first unit went into production in December 2018. Additionally, one more unit has been allotted built-up space in the factory building.
The project also includes four Primary Processing Centres (PPCs) located in the districts of Wayanad (KINFRA Park at Kalpetta), Malappuram (KINFRA Park at Kakkancherry), Thrissur (KINFRA Park at Koratty), and Ernakulum (KINFRA Park at Mazhuvannr) with infrastructure facilities for pre-processing activities. The Project Implementation Zone of KINFRA Mega Food Park extends over the districts of Wayanad, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Palakkad, Thrissur and Ernakulum to support backward linkage with farmers.