Vijayawada: Food processing units boon for farmers

Vijayawada: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy virtually inaugurated, and laid foundation for several food processing units on Tuesday. The units for which he laid foundation were Mondelez India foods private limited at Sri City in Tirupati district, and groundnut processing unit at Dharmavaram in Satyasai district. The Chief Minister also laid the foundation for three tomato primary processing units in Anantapur and Satyasai districts.

He inaugurated four fruit and vegetable processing units, including three in Chittoor district and one in Annamayya district, millets' pressing unit at Rega village in Vizianagaram district and Onion and Tomato solar dehydration cluster at Tadakanapalle of Kurnool district.

Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister said all the newly inaugurated 421 processing collection centres were linked to 1,912 Rytu Bharosa Kendras. He said in the first phase 344 cold storage rooms will be constructed.

He said the food processing and cold storage units will help the farmers to get remunerative prices for their agricultural products. He said foundations laid for food processing units are worth Rs 1,600 crore in Sri City today.

He said that a groundnut processing unit will be set up in Dharmavaram at a cost of Rs 75 crore with 55,620 metric tonne capacity. He said the unit will be more useful for groundnut farmers.

He further said fruits and vegetables processing units in Chittoor and Annamayya districts would benefit 2,412 farmers. In Satyasai and Anantapur districts, 3,588 farmers will benefit with tomato processing units.

The Chief Minister said that 13 secondary processing units and 32 primary processing units for millets are coming up in Vizianagaram district. He said onion dehydration programme will be implemented as a pilot project at hundred places to generate income of Rs 12,000 for each farmer.