Poor storage infrastructure results in wastage of fruits, grains and vegetables worth Rs.44,000 crore across the country every year, Food Processing Industries Minister Sharad Pawar informed the Rajya Sabha on Friday.
Pawar said during Question Hour that the value of annual wastage of fruits and vegetables was estimated at Rs.13,309 crore. However, if the wastage value of rice, wheat, cereals and others are taken into account, it would go up to Rs.44,000 crore a year.
He said the government has already initiated various steps to encourage creation of additional storage capacity and complimented certain states, without naming them, for showing “lot of interests”.
Pawar said the Saumitra Chaudhuri Committee, constituted by the Planning Commission in 2012, has indicated 61.3 million tonnes of cold storage requirement in the country against the present capacity of around 29 million tonnes.
“The present gap is around 32 million tonnes,” Pawar said. Government provides financial assistance in the form of grant-in-aid at the rate of 50 per cent of the total cost of plant and machinery and technical civil works in general areas and at the rate of 75 percent in difficult areas,including northeastern states, for creation of cold chain infrastructure. The ceiling is, however, at Rs.10 crore.
Pawar said investment of FDI in retail was expected to help in development of back-end cold storage infrastructure. In its latest bid to woo global chains such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour, the government early this month relaxed norms for FDI in multi-brand retail stores. Foreign retailers will now be allowed to open stores in cities that have a population of less than one million. Earlier, supermarkets could only come up in 53 cities.
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