Five cold storage facilities coming up

State Agriculture Minister Veerapandi S Arumugam looking at the food products displayed at a conference on Agro Food Processing Technologies in Chennai yesterday. Current Tamilnadu Stories Jaya plans to axe ‘betrayers’ Archives - Tamilnadu

Sat, 25 Jul, 2009,02:42 PM . Tamilnadu government will set up five market complexes with cold storage facilities, State Agriculture Minister Veerapandi S Arumugam said.. . Inaugurating a seminar on ‘Agro Food Processing Technologies’ here yesterday, he said each cold storage complex would be built at the cost of Rs one crore and these are primarily meant for preserving onion, tomato, grape, mango and coconut. He said that government is taking this initiative as it has failed to take positive steps in public-private initiative. The new cold storage centers would be coming up in Pongalur, Hosur, Odaipatti, Krishnagiri and Pattukottai. The Minister said that the government is also planning to set up a flower auction centre at cost of Rs 1.63 crore at Kavalkinar in Tirunelveli district. Speaking at the conference, Jain Irrigation Systems Limited head (QA and Food Safety) Sunil Gupta said India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world. ‘But the quality of fruits and vegetables processed here is very lower. We have huge quantity of material availability here. And also processed foods have good export potential. Conventionally our organised sector is small, but it is growing at much faster pace,’ he said. He further said issues faced in agro food processing in India are due to lack of backward linkage, poor processing and poor infrastructure. The challenges faced in this field are investment in supply chain and recycling of wastes, he said. Tamilnadu State Agriculture Marketing Board CEO Atul Anand said at the export level the State government is open for new systems for agro policies. ‘These kinds of seminars are good for formulating such policies’, he added. Sakthi Masala Private Limited managing director P C Duraiswamy and TNTDPC head G K Moinudeen also spoke.