42 Mega Food Parks worth Rs. 2000 crore will be established in the entire country, out of which five food parks stands established. One of such food park is at Fazilka in Punjab whereas 2 food parks at Ludhiana and kapurthala will be established with in next 2 years. This was stated by Union Food Processing Minister Bibi Harsimrat Kaur Badal, here at village Behra at Dera Bassi after formally inaugurating the Centre for learning resources Development at L.M. Thapar School of Management Thapar University Campus Dera Bassi. At here, she was addressing a conferences regarding promotion of Food Processing industry in Punjab. On demand of Local Legislator Sh. N.K.Sharma she gave the approval for establishing Mega Food Park at Lalru.
Union Minister said that These Food Parks will be having all facilities like Production, Processing Plant, Cold Store, Collection centre & Transports etc. besides this it will also facilitate the farmers by providing value for their hard work. One Mega Food Park provides employment to 30 thousand persons directly and will provide benefit indirectly to more than 1 lac persons. She said that food wastage could be ensured by Food Processing. As such, the aim of establishing food parks is to eliminate the wastage. She said that our traditional crops are not beneficial for the farmers. Although the farmers of Punjab do very hard work but still they does not get right value for their hard work. All this result in to financial crisis. As such, the time has come when farmers should cultivate beneficial crops, like fruits, flowers & vegetables etc. instead of traditional crops.
Bibi Harsimrat kaur Badal said that farmers of Punjab should adopt crop diversification. Govt. of Punjab is also working towards this. She further said that with the efforts of Dy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal Centre govt. has given his approval for making fuel (ethanol) from maize. This will expand the area under maize crop and farmers will also get value for their crops. Bibi Badal said that Food Processing is a big challenge for the country as such; we have to reduce wastage in the country. During this while talking about the conservation of natural resources like air and water, she said that awareness campaign in this regard should be initiated to aware the farmers to not to burn the crop residues, so that environment should not get Polluted. She also urged that scientists should come with a solution for the same. She said that under the campaign named “Nanhi Chchaan” more than 30 lacs trees has been planted and this campaign is getting a great response in the entire state.
Addressing the conference Dr. G S Kalkat Chairman Punjab State Farmers Commission and Ex Vice Chancellor Punjab Agriculture University expressed his concern about the degradation of quality of subsoil water table and urging the farmers to cultivate fruits, flowers & vegetables etc. and also said that to facilitate farmers to meet with marketing needs a collection centre should be established in each district of the state. He also emphasized on adequate staff in Agriculture University so that research in the field of agriculture could be done. During this, Sh. S.S.Marwaha CEO Bio Technology Incubator Punjab, Sh. S.S. Brar Director Punjab Agro Food Limited, Dr. Dinesh Goel, head Department of Bio Technology and Executive Director STEP Thapar University Patiala, Sh. Pranav Goel, Dr. Padam Kumar Nayyar, Dr. Dereck Lehmberg and Dr. H. Kanchan also addressed the conference. Before this, Bibi Harsimrat Kaur Badal released the special cover on the occasion of 85h Birth Anniversary of Sh. LM Thapar.During this, Deputy Commissioner Smt. Tannu Kashyap, SSP Gurpreet Singh Bhullar, Additional Deputy Commissioner Smt. Poonamdeep Kaur, SDM Sh. Shiv Kumar, President Municipal Corporation Dera Bassi Sh. Bhupinder Saini, President Municipal Corporation Zirakpur Sh, Kulwinder Singh Sohi and other officials were present.