MoFPI notifies 296 chosen food parks for NABARD fund

The Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) has issued a combined list of 296 designated food parks that have qualified for the NABARD fund.

MoFPI in this regard released an ‘office memorandum’ listing out the 296 designated food parks eligible for the credit from NABARD.

The Government of India had set up a special fund of Rs 2,000 crore in NABARD to offer affordable credit to agro processing units in 2015-16.

However, only about Rs 600 crore was utilized until now. The industry has been requesting for opening of the fund for all across the nation not limiting it to the designated parks and experts think that limiting the fund to designated parks was deleterious to the availability of the credit to the processing industry.

Also, only 4 units in designated food parks had availed the credit facility so far.

The ministry, in Feb 2020 (the year 2020 remained largely closed for industrial activities due to COVID-19 pandemic), stated- “Out of this special fund (of Rs 2,000 crore), NABARD has sanctioned term loan of Rs 490.69 crore to 12 Mega Food Park projects, Rs 44.71 crore to 4 individual processing units in Designated Food Parks, and Rs 64.39 crore to 5 Agro Processing Clusters so far.”

In the budgetary proposal of 2015-16, a special fund of Rs 2,000 crore was set up by the Government with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) to grant credit at affordable rates to food processing projects such as Mega Food Parks (MFPs), Agro-processing Clusters (APCs), Designated Food Parks (DFPs) and units set up in these MFPs, APCs, and DFPs and ever since there was a call by the industry to make it open for all across the country rather than limiting it to food parks only. These food parks are expected to give a booming upthrust to the countries food and technology bars.