India wholesale market

India lacks modern cold chain facilities

The Indian government has approved the creation of a national centre for cold chain developments and will provide Rs250m (US$5.05m) for its corpus fund.

An official statement said the Union cabinet had given ex-post facto approval to register the National Centre for Cold Chain Development (NCCD) as a society under the Societies Registration Act.

The NCCD is to be administered by a 22-member council comprising government officials, industry body representatives, and stakeholders such as growers and cold chain equipment manufacturers.

The Economic Times reported that while India is the world's second-largest producer of horticultural products a significant portion of this goes to waste because of the absence of effective cold chain facilities.

In light of the scale of problems associated with the country’s lack of cold chain infrastructure the Rs250m in funding seems paltry.

According to the newspaper, a recent government estimate stated 35 per cent of harvested fresh produce, worth around Rs500bn, went to waste in the country last year.