Goa lauded for interest in food processing park

panaji: the minister of state for food processing, mr chamanlal gupta today said that the central government has formulated a programme for boosting food processing industry and appreciated the interest shown by goa for establishing food processing parks in the state. talking to reporters, here this evening, mr gupta said the state industries minister, mr sheikh hassan has shown interest in providing food processing parks in goa.the central government provides rs 4-crore as subsidy to promote such a park for establishing the infrastructural facilities like the cold storage and others. mr gupta said the government would also provide a subsidy of 25 per cent to the upper limit to the tune of rs 50-lakh. the central government has sanctioned 30 parks in the country. neighbouring karnataka and maharashtra has already established three parks each. stating that barely 2 per cent of the fruits and vegetable grown in india are being converted into processed food items, mr gupta said the central government has a target of increasing this percentage to ten percent by next ten years. the central government needs an amount of rs 1,40,000 crore for promoting the food processing parks in the country to meet the target. mr gupta said goa has good scope for establishing food processing parks. mr hassan said the goa government has acquired land measuring 40 lakh sq mts at verna for the purpose of establishing the food processing park.