Street Food Improvement

Union Minister For Food Processing Industries Subodh Kant Sahai stated that his Ministry has mooted a scheme on "Upgradation Of Quality Of Street Food" for implementation during the 11th Plan period.

Sahai informed that the scheme was yet to be approved by the Ministry of Finance for implementation on a pilot basis in 11 cities (for "Safe Food Town" component) and in 6 cities (for "Food-Street" component).

The outcome of these pilot projects will help the Ministry in implementation of the scheme more effectively in the 12th Five Year Plan.

The Union MoS said that initial preparatory work had been initiated in 2008-09 for "Safe Food Town" component of the scheme in 11 cities namely Ranchi, Nagpur, Kochi, Ludhiana, Jaipur, Agra, Guwahati, Agartala, Shillong, Panaji and Surat, and for "Food-Street" component in the 6 cities of Tirupati, Hyderabad, Amritsar, Varanasi, Udaipur and Guwahati.

He informed that Chennai had been included for the proposed cities in the preparatory work for Safe Town Component. Ministry of Food Processing Industries Secretary wrote to the Tamil Nadu government about this, but the Tamil Nadu government neither responded nor participated in the meeting held for the purpose on January 29th, 2009.

Sahai said that no proposal under the scheme could be considered for implementation, as the scheme was yet to be approved by the competent authority.

Courtesy: INN