Aathmanirbhar Bharat is one of the major initiatives launched by Govt. of India to make India a self-reliant nation in terms of products and services. In this respect, Ministry of Food Processing Industry announced a Scheme to promote rural microenterprises in the informal Sector for reaching out nearly 25 lakh enterprises. However, this is the sector which faces major hurdles due to multitude of factors such as limited access to modern technologies, Skillsets, quality aspects, lack of branding and inability to integrate with supply chains etc. In order to overcome these constraints, handholding support in term of skilling, technology, credit & marketing and participation in value chain are essential. The scheme will be beneficial to SHGs, FPOs in the state who would like to venture into the food processing.

Salient feature of the scheme include

• Increased access to credit by existing micro food enterprises, FPOs, SHGs and Corporations
• Integration with existing supply chain by strengthening branding & marketing
• Support for transformation of existing 2 lakh enterprises to the formal sector
• Access to common services such as common processing Facility, laboratories, storage,packaging, marketing & Incubation Services
• Strengthening of Institutions, research and training in the food processing sector
• Increased access to Professional and support

The scheme will adopt One District One Product approach (ODOP) to reap the benefits of scale in terms of procurement of inputs, availing common Services and marketing of products. This will help ODOP to utilize the value chain infrastructure including the Cluster development. The ODOP product could be a perishable agriproducts, cereal based products or a food product widely produced in a District such as mango, ragi, jowar, fisheries, turmeric, honey, including waste to wealth products. Further, the scheme would be supporting the existing units processing other products as well. However, for the new units it will be limited to ODOP alone. Individual micro-entrepreneurs would be provided credit-linked Capital Subsidy @35% of the project cost with a maximum unit of Rs. 10.00 lakh per unit.

In this respect, CSIR-CFTRI has been identified as the State Level Technical Agency for the implementation of the scheme in Karnataka.