Food Processing Minister, Harsimrat Kaur Badal at the sidelines of National Cold Chain Summit, organized by CII jointly with Ministry of Food Processing Industries and Ministry of Agriculture and National Centre for Cold Chain Development (NCCD), unveiled that the government was working on National Food Processing Policy to reduce wastage of perishables and improve the supply situation.
Emphasizing upon the need for some integrated policy for food processing sector, the minister highlighted that the government was working on the policy to reduce wastage of fruits and vegetables, which were driving up the inflation. She added that while India was the second largest producer of fruits and cereals, third in marine production and had largest livestock in the world, but still the country was able to process only 2%.
The minister further asserted that the country should have no tolerance for waste, which is currently sums up to around Rs 44,000 crore and the country’s growth story could only be completed one these wastages were eliminated.
Further, she highlighted that the coal chain industry, which has the capacity of around 30 million tones, produces around 200 million metric tonne of product, faces many challenges, biggest among which is the shortage of power, without the solution of which the industry couldn’t be successful. Also, she insisted officials and other government bodies to brace themselves to cover a lot of ground needs in the cold chain sector.