TOP to TOTAL’ Scheme- Mega Food Park Scheme

TOP to TOTAL’ Scheme- Mega Food Park Scheme

Subject: Government Schemes

Context:  Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Shri Pashupati Kumar Paras today said that efforts are on for early completion of 19 Mega Food Parks in the country, which are under various stages of implementation.

Concept:

Operation Green’s TOP to TOTAL’ Scheme

• Objective: The objective of intervention is to protect the growers of fruits and vegetables from making distress sale due to lockdown and reduce the post-harvest losses.
• Eligible Crops: Fruits – Mango, Banana, Guava, Kiwi, Lichi, Papaya, Citrus, Pineapple, Pomegranate, Jackfruit; Vegetables – French beans, Bitter Gourd, Brinjal, Capsicum, Carrot, Cauliflower, Chillies (Green), Okra, Onion, Potato and Tomato.
• Any other fruit/vegetable can be added in future on the basis of recommendation by Ministry of Agriculture or State Government.
• Eligible Entities: Food Processors, FPO/FPC, Co-operative Societies, Individual farmers, Licensed Commission Agent, Exporters, State Marketing/Co- operative Federation, Retailers etc. engaged in processing/ marketing of fruits and vegetables.
• Pattern of Assistance: The Ministry of FPI will provide subsidy @ 50 % of the cost of the following two components, subject to the cost norms:
• Transportation of eligible crops from surplus production cluster to consumption centre; and/or
• Hiring of appropriate storage facilities for eligible crops (for maximum period of 3 months)
• The scheme will boost value addition in 22 perishables identified by the Ministry to supplement the income of farmers.
• Government has announced expansion of scope of “Operation Greens Scheme” from Tomato, Onion & Potato (TOP) to 22 perishable products, in the budget speech for 2021-2022

Mega Food Park:

• Mega Food Parks Scheme launched by the government in 2008 provides financial assistance upto 50 crores to setup modern infrastructure facilities for food processing called Mega Food Parks. 
• The primary objective of the Scheme is to provide modern infrastructure facilities for the food processing along the value chain from the farm to the market with a cluster based approach based on a hub and spokes model.
• It includes the creation of infrastructure for primary processing and storage near the farm in the form of Primary Processing Centres (PPCs) and Collection Centres (CCs) and common facilities and enabling infrastructure like roads, electricity, water, ETP facilities etc. at Central Processing Centre (CPC).
• These PPCs and CCs act as aggregation and storage points to feed raw material to the food processing units located in the CPC. The Mega Food Park project is implemented by a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which is a Body Corporate, registered under the Companies Act
• The Food Parks will help the farmers of the region growing Litchi, Makhana, Banana, Potato and Maize in large quantities and will provide fresh employment opportunities to women and youth of the area.