Food park issue: UP CM telephones Ramdev; assures to approve land within week

Lucknow,: Soon after Patanjali CEO Acharya Balkrishna announced that the group is pulling out of the proposed food park project in Noida over Uttar Pradesh government's apathy, the latter assured to approve the land in a week.UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath spoke to  Patanjali co-founder Baba Ramdev and assured him to solve the issue within a week. 

The controversy erupted after Acharya Balkrishna, MD, Patanjali Ayurved Ltd, tweeted on Tuesday night that ," Mega food park was coming up to make lives of farmers, better. We had also asked for permission from Central govt. There are paper work for which we requested state govt. But due to their disappointing attitude, it couldn't be done."

Additional chief secretary Anoop Pandey, holding the charge of industrial and infrastructure development, said here that there was no issue now as Swami Ramdev had been explained about the procedure which would be completed by next week.

"Therefore, 50 acre land out of 465 acres is being transferred in the name of Patanjali Foods and in the next cabinet meeting, it would be approved. The Patanjali group had applied for the transfer which would be approved by the cabinet next week, Mr Pandey said, adding "once the land is transferred in the name of Patanjali Foods, the process for setting up the park would start." 

The state government said that  Yoga Guru has assured that they will not shift the food park and Cabinet meeting proposed on June 12 is likely to take up the issue and approve it.

State Industrial Development minister Satish Mahana told UNI here on Wednesday that the matter has been sought out.

"There was some technical difficulty for the government as the land allotted by the state government was under the name of Patanjali Ayurveda but later they wanted it under Patanjali Foods," the Minister said.Mr Mahana said that there is no need to sign another MoU as the matter would be approved through state cabinet.

Earlier, Union Government had given a month's time to the state government asking why proposal for mega food park of Patanjali in Greater Noida would not be rejected, in view of non-allocation of proposed land.

J P Meena, secretary, Centre's Food Processing Industry Department, had issued notice to UP government asking as why proposal of mega food park in Greater Nodia would not  be rejected over the land issue.

  It further said that government was forced to take this decision  because state government has not allotted adequate land for the proposed park. 

Proposed food park to come up over an area of around 465 acre at an estimated cost of around Rs 2000 crore, the project entailing establishment of a food processing unit, was given a nod by the previous Akhilesh Yadav government in 2016. 

Catering to the domestic and export markets through its step-down firm Patanjali Food & Herbal Park, the project was estimated to have provided direct employment to over 8,000 people, sources said.

For the mega food parks, the government gives a subsidy of Rs 150 crore, but the promoter should have a minimum 50 acres of land with it for setting up the food park in the name of the company which is developing it.

In this case, Patanjali Group had 465 acres of land in Noida, but not in the name of Patanjali Foods, the subsidiary unit of the Patanjali group, which is promoting the food park. Baba Ramdev wanted that the mega food park subsidy should be given in the name of the company which was allotted 465 acres of land while the industrial development department explained that the land had to be in the name of the company which was setting up the park.(UNI)