Food Processing Ministry favours multi-brand retail FDI in home grown food products

Union Ministry of Food Processing Industry has favoured opening up of FDI in multi-brand retail in food articles that are indigenously sourced. Speaking at a sectoral seminar on ‘Opportunities in the Food Processing Sector’ at the Make In India Week in Mumbai Union Minister Ms. Harsimrat Kaur Badal said that she has already written to Prime Minister for allowing 100% FDI in Multi Brand Retail only for such food that is produced in India by the Indian farmers and food products that are manufactured by the manufacturers in India. The FPI Minister signalled that government wants all stakeholders on board before announcement of this change in policy. She said it would be a major step towards modernizing of old kirana stores into modern food retail and providing fair remuneration to farmers. 

The Minister assured the investors that the government was viewing the entire food sector as a wholesome sector .  Ms. Badal strongly advocated India to have a comprehensive Food Policy and said that the  Prime Minister has committed himself to mechanizing the farm lands and providing irrigation water to all the farms in the country. She said India wants to link farmers with modern technology-driven agriculture practices.

Speaking on the occasion Ms Badal said that the present government was fully committed to providing an environment that is smooth, transparent and easy for investors wanting to start an enterprise in India.

She declared that regulatory mechanism in India was moving from licence regime to registration regime for seamless hassle free production of food products and in line with this, thousands of new ingredient standards have been notified by FSSAI. “We are committed to new and established investors and cannot let the legacy of inspector raj affect growth of food processing industry” Ms. Kaur asserted.

The Minister said that she has requested for 10-year tax holiday for food processing units located in the Mega Food Parks. Highlighting the achievements in the food processing sector, she informed that while in 2008-2014 period, only two mega food parks were implemented, the present government has already operationalized five more mega food parks and in the next 30 months, all the mega food parks will be operationalized.