Government has been consistently encouraging and incentivizing increased private sector investment for the overall development of the food processing sector of the country to promote value addition in agricultural and allied sectors and reduce wastage. Now the government has approved as many as 792 projects out of 818 for setting up food processing industries by the private sector, with approved grants-in-aid of Rs. 5,792 crore so far.
The government has been consistently asking and motivating for the private sector investment for the overall development of the food processing sector of the country to promote the value addition in agricultural and allied sectors and reduce wastage.
In fact, the government has recently taken three major initiatives in order to further increase private sector participation in the sector. Firstly, the government has approved a Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for the food processing sector with an outlay of Rs. 10,900 crores to support the creation of global food manufacturing champions and support Indian brands of food products in international markets.
Secondly, the government is implementing the Pradhan Mantri Formalization of Micro food processing Enterprises Scheme to provide financial, technical, and business support for up-gradation/setting up of two lakh micro food processing units based on the One District One Product (ODOP) approach in a period of five years from 2020-21 to 2024-25 with an outlay of Rs. 10,000 crore.
Thirdly, the government in the budget speech for 2021-22 had announced the expansion of the scope of the Operation Greens scheme from tomato, onion, and potato (TOP) to 22 perishable products to boost value addition in agriculture and allied products and their exports.
The government is also implementing a central scheme Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana (PMKSY) from 2016-17 for overall growth and development of the food processing sector, mostly through private sector participation.