Railway’s Initiative on Cold Storage for Fruits

Under a pilot project called “Kisan Vision Project”, Container Corporation of India Limited (CONCOR), Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) and Central Railside Warehouse Company Limited (CRWC) were asked to provide infrastructure to encourage development of facilities for setting up cold storages and temperature-controlled perishable cargo centers as well as developing agri-retail outlets through public private partnership (PPP) mode at six locations on Indian Railways. Details of these projects are as under:-

(i) Nasik (Maharashtra): The centre located in Nasik District of Maharashtra is functional since 23.02.2013.

(ii) New Azadpur (Delhi): Perishable Cargo Centre at New Azadpur, Adarsh Nagar, New Delhi has been functional since 24.03.2015

(iii) New Jalpaiguri (West Bengal): The Perishable Cargo Centre at Bagdogra airport was taken over by CONCOR on 22.02.2011 from Siliguri Jalpaiguri Development Authority (SJDA). Under the provisions of Agreement executed between SJDA & CONCOR, SJDA was required to obtain requisite license from State Government authorities. Since SJDA has not been able to obtain the same, CONCOR intends returning the facility to SJDA.

(iv) Singur (West Bengal): The Perishable Cargo Centre was made functional on 18/12/2011. However, due to very low utilization, the service provider has abandoned the contract.

(v) Dankuni (West Bengal): Central Railside Warehouse Company Ltd.(CRWC) has been entrusted with the responsibility of developing Perishable Cargo Centre at Dankuni. However, release of requisite land at the proposed site has been impracticable due to presence of coal blocks, commercial plots, high tension wire and infringing road movement.

(vi) Perishable Cargo Centre at Ghazipur Ghat (Uttar Pradesh): The facility is expected to be functional by December 2016, with a built-up area of 1350 sq.m in Phase-I.

CONCOR’s fully owned subsidiary, i.e. Fresh and Healthy Enterprises Limited (FHEL) is operating a controlled-atmosphere store at Rai (Sonepat) in Haryana having the capacity of 11700 metric tonnes. CRWC has carried out preliminary surveys for construction of temperature-controlled storages at 10 other locations, viz. Vatva, Vishakhapatnam, Badagara, Udhna, Cheriyanad, Bhivandi Road, Azara, Navlur, Kalamboli and Yashwantpura. These surveys do not indicate feasibility, due to inadequate availability of land/traffic, at any of these locations except at Bhiwandi Road. CRWC has been allowed a timeframe of two years from receipt of requisite approvals for construction and operationalization of the warehouse complex.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Manoj Sinha in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.