Food Processing Industry Minister recognises the benefits of organized retailing

Minister of State for Food Processing Industries, Subodh Kant Sahai says Food Items worth Rs. 580 bn gets wasted every year due to fragmented farming, archaic laws and lack of proper post-harvest infrastructure. The report was prepared by Rabo Finance. This constitutes 20 % of all food produced in India.

As a continuation to the debate as to role of private retail players in India, the above report also mentions the benefits of their ability to link the farmers to the final consumers with excellent post harvest supply chain management which would help both farmers and final consumers.

The resistance comes from politicians which consider the mom and pop shops as vote bank for next election but the lobby of private retailers is becoming stronger and stronger day by day and there is no single association of mom and pop shops which can stop them from expanding at an amazing rate.

Sahai stated that under Vision 2015, the thrust areas identified for strategic intervention are establishing mega food parks, modernization of abattoirs, cold-chain/value addition and preservation infrastructure, capacity building by setting up of National Institute of Food Technology, Entrepreneurship & Management), enacting Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, upgrading safety and quality of street food and establishment/upgradation of Quality Control Laboratories.

In addition to the above, there is lots of potential of employment creation and support to the real estate sector due to organized retailing.

Sahai said that the Government has identified strategies along with a detailed action plan in this regard to realize the Vision 2015. An estimated investment of Rs100bn is required to achieve Vision 2015, he added.