Bhubaneswar: The Gujrat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (Amul) has decided to invest about Rs250 crore in the dairy sector of Odisha, according to an official statement here. The statement quoted Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Limited’s Managing Director R S Sodhi who made the announcement at the sidelines of a seminar at the World Food India 2017 in New Delhi on Saturday.
Sodi also said that currently there was a supply gap of 30 lakh litres of milk per day in Odisha. He also said the state was the second biggest market for Amul in the country. Mayank Jalan, MD of Keventer Agro Ltd, during his meeting with the Odisha delegation also expressed their intent to set up a unit for maize processing, promote banana cultivation and set up a food processing laboratory in the state.
In the seminar, the representative of the TATA Global Beverages Ltd said that it had shortlisted Odisha as the potential location for setting up of a tea packaging unit over 20 acres of land with an investment of 40 crore and employment to 400 people. The AGT Foods, along with their co-promoters based in Canada, also expressed their interest to make an investment of 250 crore near Paradeep in food processing unit.
ITC representatives along with their subsidiary, Technico Technologies, indicated to expedite setting up of their food plant at Khurda. Besides, MD of Kijalk Agro Pvt Ltd, representatives of TCS, Godrej Tyson, Impeccable Innovations met the state delegation and expressed their interest to invest in Odisha, said the statement issued last evening.
Gautam Sharma, MD of Indo-Nissin Foods elaborated their plans to expand their capacity from the existing plant at 12 tons per day. The state MSME Minister Prafulla Samal, who was present in the seminar, had said food processing was a focus sector for the state.
In order to promote the industry, Odisha had chalked out food processing policy, developed mega food parks at Deras and Rayagada and single window facilitation for investors. Odisha’s Additional Chief Secretary, MSME, L N Gupta said that with 10 agro climatic zones and 480 km long coastline coupled with surplus production of cereals, rice and vegetables, the state offered an enormous opportunity for food processing industry.
[“Source-livemint”]
