National Institute of Food Technology, Entrepreneurship and Management, at Kundli, Haryana and Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu which are autonomous institutes under the Ministry of Food Processing Industries have collaborated with several educational and research institutions to strengthen academic, technical, research and capacity-building initiatives in the food processing sector. NIFTEM-Thanjavur has conducted short term courses on Cold Chain Management.

The Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) has been implementing a Scheme for Creation of Infrastructure for Agro Processing Clusters (APC), a component scheme of Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana (PMKSY) for development of modern infrastructure to encourage entrepreneurs to set up food processing units based on cluster approach in the country. The scheme is a demand driven scheme. Ministry provides preference to those proposals under APC scheme, that are to be set up in agri-horti clusters identified from time to time by Department of Agriculture, Co-operation and Farmers Welfare (DAC&FW) under Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH), APEDA etc., by awarding additional 5 marks in the assessment / evaluation criteria.

Regular review and monitoring of the projects approved under the APC scheme is done by Ministry through Project Management Agencies (PMAs). Further, a third party impact evaluation study of the scheme for Creation of Infrastructure for Agro Processing Clusters (APC) has been conducted recently at the end of 15^th Finance Commission Cycle through M/s Quality Council of India.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Food Processing Industries Shri Ravneet Singh in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

*****

CMC-MoFPI

(Release ID: 2202876) Visitor Counter : 127