New Delhi: Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Smt Harsimrat Kaur Badal today said “for the next five years employment generation is going to my focus, especially in rural areas, so that children of farmers do not have to look for employment elsewhere. Farmers should turn into job creators from being job seekers.” She was addressing media after resuming Office here today.
She informed the Media that Ministry was working on Gram Samriddhi Yojana with World Bank which is going to be launched soon. The programme will focus on micro enterprises with capitalisation of less than 10 lakh rupees. Speaking about the programme she said “the aim is to target small farmers and the Ministry will aim to facilitate creation of 60 to 70 thousand such units within a short time. The pilot project will be done in four states and initiative will be expanded subsequently”.
Smt Badal thanked the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for reposing his faith in her and having confidence in her work to give her the opportunity to work in the same ministry again.
Stressing on her focus areas further, the Minister added “NBFC to provide funds for Food Processing Sector will also be my focus. I will also push for a National Food Processing Policy which I had presented in the last day of the last session”. She highlighted that “World Food India is almost here and it will be bigger and better than last time. I will soon take a review meeting of Officers to understand the progress that has happened in the past few months”.
The Minister welcomed the new Minister of State Shri Rameswar Teli and said that she hoped that with his arrival, food processing sector in North East will get a boost. North East has a tremendous potential and it will be one of her focus geographies henceforth.
