Patanjali decides to shift food park project out of Uttar Pradesh, blames it on Yogi government’s indifference

The ambitious Rs 2000-crore food park proposed to be set up by the company in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh ran into trouble as Patanjali decided to shift it from Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday.

Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev (File | EPS)

LUCKNOW: A day after BJP chief Amit Shah met Yoga guru Ramdev, associated with Patanjali group of companies, as part of his party's "contact for support" campaign and shared the Modi government's
achievements with him, the ambitious Rs 2000-crore food park proposed to be set up by the company in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh ran into trouble as Patanjali decided to shift it from Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday.

The reason being ‘indifferent attitude’ of the UP government as was claimed by Acharya Balkrishna, MD, Patanjali Ayurved Ltd (PAL) & co-founder of Patanjali Yogpeeth.

Notably, previous Akhilesh government had approved the food park in Greater Noida and around 450 acres of land on the Yamuna Expressway was allocated for the Rs 2,000-crore project in November, 2016.

Meanwhile, in a damage control exercise, CM Yogi Adityanath pitched in himself talking to Baba Ramdev assuring the Yoga guru that all the issues related to the mega project would be resolved through
dialogue. According to the highly placed sources, the CM told Baba Ramdev that his government would not let Patanjali take the project out of Uttar Pradesh.

However, earlier, while the development was being seen as a major setback to the UP government’s efforts to bring investment to the state, the official spokesman of the state government had refuted the reports of cancellation of the land to Patanjali for the project by the state government as was reported in a
section of media.

Speaking to TNIE, the state government spokesman said that no notice was issued to PAL notifying cancellation of the land allotted to them. However, he clarified that the company was asking the state
government to split the 450-acres of land into 400 acre in Greater Noida and 50-acre somewhere else which the state government refused.

Earlier, Patanjali Ayurved Limited managing director Acharya Balkrishna had claimed that the group had decided to shift its proposed food park out of Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh as “lives of farmers could not be improved”.

Blaming Adityanath government for the pullout, Balkrishna had tweeted: “Came to know about quashing of Mega Food Park, approved by the Centre, in Greater Noida. The pledge to bring prosperity to the
lives of farmers in the land of Sri Ram and Krishna remained incomplete because of the indifference of the state government.”

He had added, “Patanjali has decided to shift the project (Mega Food Park) with immediate effect.”