3-May-2017: Cabinet approves New Central Sector Scheme – SAMPADA (Scheme For Agro-Marine Processing And Development Of Agro-Processing Clusters)
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has given its approval for re-structuring the schemes of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries(MoFPI) under new Central Sector Scheme – SAMPADA (Scheme for Agro-Marine Processing and Development of Agro-Processing Clusters) for the period 2016-20 coterminous with the 14th Finance Commission cycle.
SAMPADA with an allocation of Rs. 6,000 crore is expected to leverage investment of Rs. 31,400 crore, handling of 334 lakh MT Agro-produce valuing Rs. 1,04,125 crore, benefit 20 lakh farmers and generate 5,30,500 direct/ indirect employment in the country by the year 2019-20.
The objective of SAMPADA is to supplement agriculture, modernize processing and decrease Agri-waste. SAMPADA is an umbrella scheme incorporating ongoing schemes of the Ministry like Mega Food Parks, Integrated Cold Chain and Value Addition Infrastructure, Food Safety and Quality Assurance Infrastructure, etc. and also new schemes like Infrastructure for Agro-processing Clusters, Creation of Backward and Forward Linkages, Creation / Expansion of Food Processing & Preservation Capacities.
The SAMPADA is a comprehensive package to give a renewed thrust to the food processing sector in the country. It includes new schemes of Infrastructure for Agro-processing Clusters, Creation of Backward and Forward Linkages and Creation / Expansion of Food Processing & Preservation Capacities aim at development of modern infrastructure to encourage entrepreneurs to set up food processing units based on cluster approach, provide effective and seamless backward and forward integration for processed food industry by plugging gaps in supply chain and creation of processing and preservation capacities and modernization/ expansion of existing food processing units.
The implementation of SAMPADA will result in creation of modern infrastructure with efficient supply chain management from farm gate to retail outlet. It will not only provide a big boost to the growth of food processing sector in the country but also help in providing better prices to farmers and is a big step towards doubling of farmers’ income. It will create huge employment opportunities especially in the rural areas. It will also help in reducing wastage of agricultural produce, increasing the processing level, availability of safe and convenient processed foods at affordable price to consumers and enhancing the export of the processed foods.
Food Processing Sector has emerged as an important segment of the Indian economy in terms of its contribution to GDP, employment and investment. During 2015-16, the sector constituted as much as 9.1 and 8.6 per cent of GVA in Manufacturing and Agriculture sector respectively. The manifesto of NDA Government stresses upon incentivizing the setting up of food processing industry for providing better income for the farmers and creating jobs.
Various measures have been taken by the government to give a boost to the food processing sector. With these measures food processing sector has grown at 7 per cent. In order to arrest post-harvest losses of horticulture & non-horticulture produce, the Ministry has accorded approval to 42 Mega Food Parks and 236 Integrated Cold Chains for creation of modern infrastructure for the food processing along the value chain from the farm to the market. Out of 42 Mega Food Parks, 8 are operational. Of this, 6 Mega Food Parks have been made operational during the last 3 years. Another 4 Mega Food Parks are targeted for operationalization in next three months. Similarly, out of 236 Cold Chains, 101 Cold Chains have been sanctioned recently in March, 2017. 100 Cold Chains have become operational. Of which, 63 Cold Chains have been made operational during last 3 years.
Government has taken various other measures to boost food processing sector as follows:
- To provide impetus to investment in food processing and retail sector, govt. has allowed 100% FDI in trading including through e-commerce, in respect of food products manufactured and / or produced in India. This will benefit farmers immensely and will create back – end infrastructure and significant employment opportunities.
- The govt. has also set up a Special Fund of Rs. 2000 crore in NABARD to make available affordable credit at concessional rate of interest to designated food parks and Agro processing units in the designated food parks.
- Food and Agro–based processing units and cold chain infrastructure have been brought under the ambit of Priority Sector Lending (PSL) to provide additional credit for food processing activities and infrastructure thereby, boosting food processing, reducing wastage, create employment and increasing farmers’ income.
5-Apr-2017: Geotagging of assets created under RKVY
Geo tagging?
Geotagging is the process of adding geographical identification like latitude and longitude to various media such as a photo or video. Geotagging can help users find a wide variety of location-specific information from a device. It provides users the location of the content of a given picture.
Geo-mapping is a visual representation of the geographical location of geotagged assets layered on top of map or satellite imagery.
Why is Geotagging important?
Several assets are created in the states under various schemes of the Ministry of Agriculture. Under RKVY also, states have been utilising substantial amount of funds for creation of infrastructure/assets in agriculture and allied sectors such as soil testing labs, pesticide testing labs, bio fertiliser setting units, custom hiring centres, vaccine production units , veterinary diagnosis labs , dispensaries , milk collection centres , fish production units, godowns, cold storage, shade nets, pandals for vegetable cultivation etc. Monitoring of such wide spread activities is of paramount importance to states and Government of India to understand flow of funds, inventorying the assets, bringing in transparency, planning of assets for future, and finally informing the farmers about the facilities available.
Geotagging for monitoring of assets is already started in Ministry of Rural Development for MGNREGA and Department of Land Resources for monitoring of watershed activities in the states. Postal department has also geotagged the post offices using NRSC Bhuvan Platform.
Who does it?
National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) , ISRO at Hyderabad. This centre of ISRO has a software platform, Bhuvan that allows users to explore a 2D/3D representation of the surface of the Earth. It also acts as a platform for hosting government data. Bhuvan Application Services that are diversified and relevant for many ministries were released. NRSC is involved in mapping of resources (Postal, GAIL, Forest etc) as well as monitoring of assets created under various schemes of Ministry of water Resources, Ministry of rural development etc.
The assets created under RKVY could be monitored by Geotagging them using BHUVAN, a geo-platform of National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of ISRO, Hyderabad. In future, the location of the infrastructure created and distances from each other could also be utilised for arriving at distribution of assets and optimum number of that particular asset required in a district or state. The process involves development of a mobile app for mapping the assets through photographs and Geo-tagging (providing geo co-ordinates) before hosting on to DAC –RKVY platform that would be specially created for RKVY monitoring.
Proposal for geotagging of infrastructure /assets created under RKVY:
Therefore, it is proposed to prepare inventory of the assets created in the last one decade (2007-2017) under RKVY through Geotagging technique. National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), wing of Indian Space Research Organisation is providing technical support to RKVY division and has come up with a detailed procedure for the same. The institute is involved in preparation of the required app, imparting training to the states etc.. The trained officers at the field level will take the photographs (with details of latitude, longitude, year of creation etc.) of the assets and upload on to the Bhuvan-RKVY platform of NRSC.
So far NRSC has developed RKVY app, training manual, imparted training to 17 states regarding use of the app. The organisation will provide technical backstopping till the Geotagging exercise is completed. Pilot work has been initiated in 4 states of Orissa, Maharashtra, Bihar and Karnataka.
A formal MoU is proposed to be signed between DAC&FW and NRSC regarding use of BHUVAN for launching BHUVAN-RKVY platform. It is proposed to sign the MoU on 6th April.
4-Mar-2017: National conference on Jal Kranti Abhiyan.
Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation has organized a national conference on Jal Kranti Abhiyan in New Delhi on March 07,2017.
About 700 participants representing various stakeholder groups such as farmers, Panchayat members, officials, NGOs and students will be attending the daylong conference.
Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Sushri Uma Bharti launched Jal Kranti Abhiyan on June 05,2015 to consolidate water conservation and management in the country through a holistic and integrated approach involving all stakeholders making it mass movement. One of the main objectives of the Jal Kranti Abhiyan is “ strengthening grass root involvement of all stakeholders including Panchayati Raj institutions and local bodies for Participatory Irrigation Management.”
There are four important components of Jal Kranti Abhiyan viz. Jal Gram Yojana, Development of Model Command Area, Pollution Abatement and Mass Awareness Programme. Under Jal Gram Yojana two water stressed villages in each district of the country are to be selected and a comprehensive water security plan is formulated to achieve water security for these villages. So far 726 such villages have been identified against the total target of 828. Integrated Water Security Plan for 180 Villages have been prepared and 61 of them have been approved.