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A year later, the Government introduced is the first time a programme like World
the Skill India mission or Pradhan Mantri Food India is happening in the country on
Kaushal Vikas Yojana. Through this, a large scale. We believe it will provide a
renowned institutes with a background platform for all stakeholders in the food
in engineering, food and process processing industry -- from growers and
technology have been training people in suppliers of agri-produce to chefs, and
food processing techniques and food from process equipment manufacturers
safety. This is important because the food to packaging equipment manufacturers.
processing industry needs workers who Through World Food India, all of them
understand food safety. Earlier, will be able to understand the
companies such as ours would hire opportunities that are available with
people and then train them, but now we respect to consumption, value addition
have a talent pipeline which understands and ease of doing business in India today.
the importance of food safety.
A point worth mentioning is the
Three new measures are also expected to Surakshit Khadya Abhiyan which is
boost confidence for companies to come expected to run for at least the next three
and set up shop in the country. The first years. The initiative aims to create
is that the government has opened up awareness about food safety so that
100 percent foreign direct investment or manufacturers such as restaurant owners
FDI in the trading of food products that or even street food vendors can follow
have been manufactured or produced in food safety standards.
India. This includes trading through e-
commerce and is expected to give a boost
to the food processing sector. Gaps
The launch of Kisan Sampada Yojna in There are still some points that require
May 2017 has been another welcome focus though. The first is a reduction of
move. 6000 crore rupees have been import duties on the technology and
earmarked for this initiative and the process equipment that the food
schemes include mega food parks, processing industry depends on. This will
integrated cold chain and value addition be required until we create an
infrastructure, creation and expansion of environment where process equipment
food processing and preservation manufacturers start producing locally. A
capacities, infrastructure for agro- similar situation was seen three decades
processing clusters, creation of backward ago in the dairy industry.
and forward linkages, food safety and Packaging technology and platforms
quality assurance infrastructure and should be another focus area since the
human resources and institutions. growth of the food processing industry
Setting up food parks across the country will be based on this.
is expected to give a fillip to the food And last but not the least, the
processing sector. Food companies will government should give shopkeepers
not only receive fiscal benefits, but will subsidies to buy cold chain infrastructure
also have access to the requisite which will be the point of sale for cold
infrastructure. A lot of support is being chain products. Most shopkeepers can’t
seen for these mega food parks. GTFL will afford to buy chillers or freezers for cold
set up a ready-to-cook processing plant chain products. GTFL has so far provided
at a food park in Ludhiana in Punjab. 2000 freezers to shopkeepers, but last
We as a company are very excited about mile cold chain continues to be a concern.
the Government’s latest programme. This
