The Centre is ready to support the private sector in setting up cold chain storage units across the country, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar announced on Tuesday. Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour in the Lok Sabha, he cited irregular power supply and non-availability of land as hurdles in setting up cold storage units in a big way.
Pawar said running such units on diesel gensets was an expensive proposition. He said there were 5,101 cold storage units in the country, with a cumulative capacity of 21.7 million tonnes. The Centre had set up a taskforce for development of cold chain in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for preparing a roadmap.