Hyderabad, Jun 30 (IANS): The Telangana government has received 350 applications in response to Expression of Interest (EOI) called by it for setting up food processing zones in the state.

Industry minister K.T. Rama Rao on Wednesday directed the officials to extend the last date for submission of EOI so that more companies can join the process.

The Minister presided over a meeting on setting up special economic zones.

Minister for Agriculture Niranjan Reddy and Minister for Civil Supplies Gangula Kamalakar and senior officials attended the meeting.

The state government plans to set up food processing zones on a large scale. They will be based on agriculture produce in a particular area. The industry department has prepared Telangana food map in this regard.

The meeting decided that each food processing zone should come up over not less than 225 acres. These zones would have infrastructure like water and power supply, roads, drinking water availability and common effluent plant.

The food processing zones would cater to the needs of farmers who are raising not only paddy but also chillies, turmeric, pulses, edible oils, fruits and vegetables. The facilities at ever zone would include processing, storage units and marketing infrastructure.

Rama Rao pointed out that the agriculture development programme taken up by the government and completion of several irrigation projects has led to massive increase in agriculture production in the state.

KTR, as the minister is popularly known, pointed out that the agriculture sector has seen tremendous growth across the state including in drought-prone districts like Mahabubnagar.

He claimed that Telangana started the second green revolution in the country. In addition, meat, milk and fisheries sectors have grown at a rapid pace.

He said there was need to strengthen food processing sector in the state to create demand and marketing facilities for increased agriculture production. For this, special food processing zones and not just processing units should be set up.

He said though paddy is the main crop in Telangana, the food processing zones will be created while keeping in view the future requirements of new crops like oil palm.

He appealed to the MLAs to show more interest in helping the authorities acquire necessary land for the creation of the zones.

Gangula Kamalakar called for encouraging those who want to set up rice mills. He said that if the state does milling extensively, there is a scope for exporting rice to countries like China.