zoram mega food park

Why in News?

• Virtual inauguration ceremony of the Zoram Mega Food Park located in Mizoram was conducted recently.

About Zoram MFP:

• Zoram Mega Food Park has been set up in 55 acre of land in Kolasib district of Mizoram.
• It will provide direct and indirect employment to 5,000 persons and benefit about 25,000 farmers.
• The project cost is Rs.75 crores.
• The Park will leverage an additional investment of about Rs 250 Crore in about 30 food processing units in the park and would eventually lead to a turnover of about Rs 450-500 Crores annually.

Features of the Mega food park scheme:

• Mega Food Park is a scheme of the Ministry of Food Processing.
• 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.
• The scheme aims at 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).
• The financial assistance under the scheme is provided in the form of grant-in-aid at 50%of eligible project cost in general areas and at 75% of eligible project cost in NE Region and difficult areas.
• This is implemented via a Special Purpose Vehicle where the food processing company will have a minimum equity of 26%.
• Presently, 18 Mega Food Park Projects are under implementation in various states and 19 Mega Food Parks have already become functional in the States. 6 of them are in the Northeastern region.

PRELIMS QUESTION

Consider the following statements regarding mega food parks scheme:
1.It is under the ministry of agriculture.
2.North East regions receive higher government funding under the scheme.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a)1 only
(b)2 only
(c)Both 1 and 2 
(d)Neither 1 nor 2

Answer to prelims question