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New Delhi, Oct 27 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday highlighted the government’s commitment to enhancing India’s domestic food processing capacity and underlined its vital role in ensuring national security, rural prosperity and economic resilience.
Responding to an ex post from the office of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, PM Modi said this highlights that “strengthening domestic food processing capacity is a national security priority”.
“Minister underlined how the initiative, in line with the ‘One District, One Product’ approach, is empowering farmers, generating local employment and promoting rural self-reliance. Read!” PM Modi added.
The Finance Minister in his article underlined that a revolution in agro-processing is turning farmers into entrepreneurs in arid parts of Karnataka, turning blocks into manufacturing hubs.
“A visit to the beautiful state of Karnataka, which I have the privilege of representing in the Council of States – a land whose very name exudes lush landscapes, waterfalls, pristine hills, lush valleys, pristine rivers and a history that spans millennia – is always invigorating. The trip was a journey through time, a study in contrasts and a powerful reminder of our country’s immense potential,” FM Sitharaman wrote, in an increasingly protectionist global environment, strengthening our domestic food processing capacity is a national security priority.
He highlighted that planning for the aspirational districts of Karnataka – Yadgir and Raichur – should be sensitive to local variations. This is where the Government of India’s ‘Aspirational Block Programme’ plays an important role, focusing not only on districts but also on sub-district and block-level inequalities.
The Finance Minister said that his MPLADS fund was used to support farmers in the region by bringing agro-processing capabilities at their doorstep. An umbrella brand of Kalyan Sampada (Wealth of Welfare) was created, and each district was encouraged to identify an agri-product or a set of products that could be developed into value-added goods.
This initiative is in line with the vision of the Prime Minister’s “One District, One Product” program as an extension of ‘Make in India’ for our annadatas (farmers). In each district, a Farmer Producer Company (FPC) was selected by NABARD to operate the food processing and training units.
In Koppal, where per capita income is about 15 per cent lower than the national average, a multi-fruit processing unit has been set up. Although the district cultivated about 6,000 hectares (hectares) of mango, 5,000 hectares of papaya, 3,000 hectares of guava and 2,000 hectares of tomato, it lacked processing facilities. This is the first fruit-processing unit in the district, which now processes these fruits into products like mango juice, dry mango powder, guava nectar, tomato puree and ginger powder, ensuring farmers benefit from value addition.
This unit can process about 2 percent of the fruits produced in the district into juice/pulp, and there is immense potential for many more units in this district.
In Raichur, an aspirational district known for its large pulse production – 80,000 metric tonnes of red gram and 34,000 metric tonnes of Bengal gram annually – the new processing unit focuses on converting these pulses into arhar dal, chana dal and ready-to-make chilla mix. The unit can procure-process-market about 1 percent of the total pulses produced in the district.
Sitharaman said, “At least 50 such units will be required to process about 50 per cent of the total pulses produced in the district. Therefore, this initiative serves as a model for emulation for other FPOs and rural entrepreneurs in the district.”
–IANS
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