The purpose of the Scheme of “Integrated Cold Chain and Value Addition Infrastructure” is to offer integrated cold chain and preservation infrastructure facilities, without any break, from the farming gate to the customer. It covers creation of commercial infrastructure facility along the entire supply chain viz. pre-cooling, weighing, sorting, grading, polishing facilities at farm level, multi product/multi temperature cold storage, CA storage, packing facility, IQF, blast freezing in the distribution hub and reefer vans, mobile cooling units for facilitating distribution of non-horticulture, horticulture, fish/marine(except shrimp), dairy, meat and poultry. The scheme allows flexibility in project planning with special emphasis on creation of cold chain infrastructure at farm level. The integrated cold chain project can be established up by Partnership or Proprietorship Firms, Companies, Corporations, Cooperatives, Self Help Groups (SHGs), Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), Central/ State PSUs, etc dependent on fulfilment of eligibility conditions of scheme guidelines.
With the vision of Hon. Finance Minister’s announcement on May 2020, 1 lakh crore Agri Infrastructure Fund for creating the farm-gate infrastructure for farmers. The Financing scheme of Rs. 1,00,000 crore will be provided for the funding Agriculture Infrastructure Projects at farm-gate & aggregation points (Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies, Farmers Producer Organizations, Agriculture entrepreneurs, Start-ups, etc). Impacting for development of farm gate & aggregation point, affordable and financially viable Post Harvest Management infrastructure.
The Plan of Mega Food Park focuses on supplying a system to link agricultural manufacturing to the market by bringing together farmers, dairy business as well as retailers so regarding guarantee maximizing value addition, minimizing waste, enhancing farmers earnings and also creating job opportunity especially in country market. The Mega Food Park Scheme is based upon “Cluster” approach and also envisages creation of state of art assistance facilities in a well-defined agri zone for establishing of modern-day food handling facilities in the commercial plots provided in the park with reputable supply chain. Mega food park generally contain supply chain infrastructure including collection facilities, primary processing facilities, main handling facilities, cold chain and also around 25-30 fully established stories for entrepreneurs to establish food handling units. The Mega Food Park task is applied through an Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). Subject to satisfaction of the problems of the System Standards, the funds are released to the SPVs.