Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal inaugurated, on February 10, the Cremica Food Park – the first mega food park of Himachal Pradesh. The inauguration took place in the presence of Jai Ram Thakur, Chief Minister, Himachal Pradesh and Anurag Singh Thakur, Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Hamirpur.

The mega food park has been set up at a cost of Rs.107.34 crore. It will benefit people of Una district and the nearby districts of Kangra, Hamirpur and Bilaspur. The park has been set up in 52.40 acre of land at a cost of Rs.107.34 crore. The facilities being created by the developer at Central Processing Centre (CPC) of this mega food park include multi-crop pulping line with bulk aseptic packaging (24 MT/ hour), frozen storage (1,000 MT), deep freeze, dry warehouse, QC Laboratory and other food processing facilities. The park also has a common administrative building for office and other uses by the entrepreneurs and three PPCs at Solan, Mandi, and Kangra having facilities for primary processing and storage near the farms. Speaking on the occasion, Badal said the mega food park will leverage an additional investment of about Rs.250 crores in 25-30 food processing units in the park and generate a turnover of about Rs.450-500 crore annually. It will also provide direct and indirect employment to 5,000 persons and benefit about 25,000 farmers in the CPC and PPC catchment areas.

The food processing ministry is focusing on boosting the industry so that agriculture sector grows exponentially and becomes a major contributor to doubling the farmers’ income and the ‘Make in India’ initiative of the government.

(Source: The Economic Times, February 11, 2018)