To what extent has the Production Linked Incentive Scheme for the food processing industry facilitated value addition, employment generation, and global competitiveness in India's food processing industry? (Answer in 250 words)

Production Linked Incentive Scheme PLI provides for incentives to industries based on incremental sales. Positive Impact on Food processing Industry: Value Addition: APE: Will reach $535 billion by end of 2025 (2) Enabled access to domestic machinery reducing import reliance (3) Boosting of cold chain storage to reduce high post harvest losses (15-20.1 per ICAR) (4) Creation of innovative indigenous technology Eg. Sale n Fresh for Apples from Himachal Pradesh Employment Generation: (1) FPI accounts for 12.5.1 share of employment in organised manufacturing sector (2) Helped boost worker productivity by 9-5% by transition from agriculture to manufacturing (3) Reduction of high disguised unemployment in agriculture Global Competitiveness: (1) Processed food products now 24.1 share of agricultural exports

Shortfalls: (1) Benefits mainly to major players but 70.1% of FPI is in unorganised sector (2) Need to address shortfall of skilled labour => 13 lakh needed by 2030 MOFA (3) High sales requirement excludes many small FPI (4) Poor infrastructure (20.1% freight via roads) hurts export competitiveness PLI share is great stuck towards expanding FPI & achieving vision of doubling farmers income (Palwai committee)