AP government allots 172 acres of land for Patanjali's food park

The Andhra Pradesh government has allotted 172 acres of land to Yaga guru Baba Ramdev-promoted Patanjali Ayurved Limited for setting up a mega food park in the north coastal district of Vizianagaram.

The land allotment orders comes in less than two months after the company has formally submitted an application in connection with the proposed facility.

The company plans to develop the facility with an initial capacity of 200,000 tonnes per annum, which would be further expandable to 300,000 tonnes, at an investment of Rs 500 crore.

The company would use the AP facility to process commodities such as spices, rice, pulses and millets, besides vegetables, citrus fruits, banana, mango, guava, pine apple, amla, aloevera, coconut, and oil palm.

The products would be sold under Patanjali brand across the country. It is setting up processing units strategically close to the places of agriculture crops it would like to procure as a part of its food business.

In November last year Patanjali's managing director Acharya Balakrishna met with AP chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and informed him that his company would like to set up 2-3 projects, including a food-processing plant in the state.

While Patanjali has chosen AP to tap its rich agriculture base in spices, pulses, rice and horticulture crops, the state government has acted quickly on the company's request besides offering the land at a nominal price of Rs 3 lakh per acre.

The Rs 5,000-crore company is currently developing eight food processing parks in five different states, in addition to the existing food park in Hardwar. In November the Patanjali MD also visited Telangana's turmeric-rich Nizamabad district and conveyed his interest to set up processing unit to make turmeric-based products from this place.