Kamal Nath asks private sector to supplement government''s farm sector initiatives

17 July 2007

Mumbai: The government wants private sector to invest in the country''s agriculture sector by developing cold chains, warehousing and transport facilities, and thereby helping to remove infrastructure bottlenecks that hamper farm sector growth.

"We hope that the private sector would supplement public investment in agro-exports sector, pitching in greater investments than ever before," commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath told the parliamentary consultative committee.

Infrastructure remained a major problem confronting the Indian agriculture in general exports in particular, he said.

"There is a need to strengthen cold chain network, transportation and warehousing to ensure that wastage is minimised and the agricultural produce meets high quality standards," Nath was quoted in an official release.

Meanwhile, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Exports Developments Authority (APEDA) has proposed Rs2,500 crore investment to set up 12 centres across the country for handling agro-perishable exports.

The centres would come up at Chandigarh, Muzaffarpur, Agra, Kolkata, Guwahati, Mumbai, Nasik, Pune, Nagpur, Raipur, Hyderabad and Dharmapuri, APEDA chairman K S Money said.