Odisha’s Deras Sea Food Park Receives Rs 466 Crore Investment Proposals

Sanjeev Chopra

Bhubaneswar: The Sea Food Park at Deras in the outskirt of the capital city of Odisha has received proposals worth Rs466 crore for setting up of processing units. The committed investment so far would built up capacity to process 90,860 MTPA of sea food and will generate employments for 7214 persons.

The state principal secretary industries, Sanjeev Chopra said, “We are confident that the state-of-the-art facility at the Seafood Park and Odisha’s investor friendly policies will set new benchmarks for the sector”.

The Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO), which has developed the Park over an area of 152 acres with an investment of Rs134 crore, has already allotted land to about 20 firms.

Among the major companies which have already committed investments for setting up units at the seafood park are Falcon Marine Exports Ltd, Magnum Seafoods Ltd, Utkal Exports and Vizag-based Coastal Corporation Ltd. Falcon Marine Exports will set up the largest sea food processing unit with a capacity of 37000 MTPA of sea food and provide 4060 employment opportunities.

Located at a distance of about 20 kms from Bhubaneswar, the seafood park is well-connected to domestic, national and international markets. The Park has been approved under the Mega Food Park scheme of the union ministry of food processing industries and will comprise of 41 processing units. The Park will provide plug and play infrastructure and access to common facilities like devices for cold storage, pre-processing and post-processing facilities, ice plant, packaging, polythene unit and a research and development facility.

According to the Fishery Survey in India, the fisheries potential of Odisha is 513,667 million tonnes per annum (MTPA). Additionally, Odisha’s proximity to South-East Asian markets and increasing demand in Japan and Europe will further aid the development of sea food sector in the state. With the increasing global demand for seafood, India has already become the 11^th largest exporter of seafood in the world. Meanwhile, Odisha government has set up a target of reaching Rs.20,000 crore seafood exports annually in the next five years from the present level of Rs.2,500 crore.

India exported 11,34,948 MT of seafood worth an all-time high of US$ 5.78 billion in 2016-17 as against 9,45,892 MT and 4.69 billion dollars a year earlier, with USA and South East Asia continuing to be the major importers. During the same period, total exports of marine products from Odisha stood at 47204.97 MT and was valued at 2508.31 crores.

The major markets for seafood from Odisha include South East Asia (39%) followed by USA (28%), EU (11%) and Japan (9%) in terms of quantity. In terms of value, USA (35%) stands ahead of South East Asia (30%) followed by EU (11%), Japan (10%), Middle East (3%), etc.Some of the major marine products exported from Odisha to countries like Japan, China, the US, UK, UAE, Indonesia and Hong Kong include frozen shrimps, frozen pompret, ribbon fish.