Yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Ayurved on Tuesday pulled out of its proposed Rs 6,000-crore mega food processing project along the Yamuna Expressway in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh (UP), citing non-cooperation from the Yogi Adityanath’s UP government.
Patanjali Ayurved Managing Director Acharya Balkrishna confirmed the news, he said, “We are cancelling the project as we did not get required clearances from the UP state government. We did not get any cooperation from the state government for this project. We have waited for long time for the clearances but could not get from the state government. Now we have decided to shift the project,” he added.
When contacted Food Processing Secretary J P Meena regarding the Patanjali’s decision to shift the project, he said, “Patanjali was given four months time to meet the conditions required to get the final approval. There are four to five conditions, including land and bank loans, which any party that wants to set up mega food park has to fulfil. We have not cancelled the project. We have given one month extension to Patanjali, they have to meet the condition. In case, Patanjali does not meet the condition, we have no choice but to cancel. We have done it earlier in many projects,” Meena added.
Balkrishna earlier claimed that Patanjali had already got support from the financial institutions for the project. “We got extensions two times from the Ministry of Food Processing Industries and now the time is lapsing as we could not get the required clearances from the state government,” Balakrishna said.
Patanjali is presently investing in mega food park projects, including Nagpur in Madhya Pradesh and Tejpur in Assam.
