Answer:

Food and food products are the biggest consumption category in India, with spending on food accounting for nearly 21% of India’s GDP. But the overall processing level is just 10% in India whereas it has reached nearly 80% in some developed countries. Its share in exports of processed food in world trade is just 1.5%.

Some of the major constraints to food processing industry are: inadequate logistics, access to credit, technology indigenisation and implementation of food safety laws.

Need for better logistics

♤ The national highways are highly strained by low capacity and high traffic volumes, leading to delays in transit.

♤ Rail freight network suffers due to lack of last mile connectivity, inefficiency, low availability of wagons, lack of private participation etc.

♤ The dependence on manual labour and low technology usage affects turnaround times at ports, including cost.

♤ There is an urgent need to develop dedicated freight corridors in rail, supplemented by concretised dual carriageways for the State and national highways.

♤ There is a need to support development of organised strategic logistics hubs and incentivise operators in setting up end-to-end logistics and warehousing.