Minister for Agriculture Markets and Sugar Shivaraj Tangadagi, speaking to press persons in Bangalore on Saturday, said the government decided to develop the park based on the study report submitted by a team headed by Dr P G Chengappa, vice chancellor of University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore.
The study team suggested setting up of the park in the Tungabhadra command area. Paddy is grown in 95 per cent of 8.95 lakh acres of irrigated land in the command area. Annually about 178 lakh quintals of paddy is grown. “Farmers in the region grow high quality rice (sona masuri), which has huge demand abroad. But the growers are not aware of this fact. The proposed park will consist an information centre to help paddy growers and also research institute,” the minister said.
This is the first such park, being developed on a public private partnership, in the country. The department has initiated the process to prepare the detail project report.
The report would be tabled before the Cabinet. The proposed project would provide job for nearly 2,000 people and will come up on the government land.
The study team headed by Dr Chengappa prepared the report after consulting different stake holders, including farmers, traders in APMC and people’s representatives in the Tungabhadra Command Area.
The report said the park would include rice milling zone, by-product zone, processing zone, transport zone, quality control lab and knowledge source centre. The by-product zone consists production of rice by-products - rice flour, rice rava, rice bran oil, noodles, rice based alcohol, animal and poultry feeds.
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