Government approves 21 projects under Scheme for Integrated Cold Chain & Value Addition

Government has approved 21 projects, leveraging investment worth Rs 443 crore supported with a grant of Rs 189 crore under the Scheme for Integrated Cold Chain and Value Addition. The approval in this regard was given during the inter-Ministerial Approval Committee meeting chaired by Minister for Food Processing Industries Narendra Singh Tomar yesterday.

Food Processing Ministry in a tweet said, "21 projects, leveraging investment worth Rs 443 crores supported with a grant of Rs. 189 Crores, were approved under the Scheme for Integrated Cold Chain and Value Addition today by the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMAC) chaired by Union Minister FPI, Sh. @nstomar."

Mr Tomar said that these projects will benefit farmers and consumers and urged the officers to expedite the implementation of approved projects. He said, 21 projects are likely to generate employment for nearly 12, 600 people and benefit over two lakh farmers.

These projects are spread across Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Nagaland, Punjab, Telangana, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh. The Scheme for Integrated Cold Chain and Value addition infrastructure aims at arresting post-harvest losses of horticulture and non-horticulture produce & providing remunerative price to farmers.

Besides, 8 projects leveraging investment worth Rs 62 crore with grants of Rs 15 crore under the Backward and Forward Linkages (BFL) Scheme were also approved in another meeting. These projects are likely to generate employment for nearly 2,500 people. The objective of the scheme is to provide effective and seamless backward and forward integration for the processed food industry by plugging the gaps in the supply chain in terms of availability of raw material and linkages with the market.