New Delhi, Dec 10 (ANI): The Union Government on Thursday proposed to extend benefits of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) to food parks.

The decision was taken to make the country to quickly emerge as a regional hub for food processing.

Informing this to the Lok Sabha Union Food processing Industry Minister Subodh Kant Sahay clarified that the SEZ benefits are available only to SEZ Developers and units.

“Mega Food Park Scheme presently operates under different set of guidelines framed by the Centre. In the 11th Plan the Food Processing Industry Ministry has approved a new scheme to establish 30 Mega Food Parks with a view to provide state-of-the-art infrastructure for food processing sector in the country on a pre-identified cluster basis with a strong backward and forward linkage and to provide value addition of agriculture commodities including poultry, meat, dairy, fisheries etc. in a demand driven manner,” Sahay said.

He also informed the member that the ownership and management of Mega Food Park would vest with a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in which organized retailers, processors, service providers, farmer groups etc may be the equity holders.

“The products of the Food Processing Industries located in a Mega Food Park can be sold to domestic as well as export market,” he added. (ANI)