The Associated Chambers of Commerce of India – the oldest and leading apex chamber of commerce and industry in India – held its annual National Conference & Awards on Cold Chain at Taj Land’s End, Mumbai on October 11. Bhagat Singh Koshyari – Governor of Maharashtra – was the Chief Guest.

In his welcome address, Niranjan Hiranandani – Senior Vice president, ASSOCHAM – dwelled upon the Central Government’s target of doubling farmers’ incomes by 2025. Export of seafood being an important part of the action plan for achieving this target, a robust cold chain is essential. He emphasised that social objectives are as important as GDP targets. Amitabh Mukherjee – Vice President, Transport Corporation of India Cold Chain Solutions – delivered the theme address in which he mentioned that 40% of the agricultural produce in India is wasted. This underlines the need for an integrated cold chain.

Dr. S. K. Goel – Member, Expert Committee, Agriculture and Food Processing, Bombay Chamber of Commerce & Industry – spoke about the present cold chain infrastructure in India, of which 88% is dedicated to storage and 12% to transportation. Though the cold storage capacity of 34 million MT is quite substantial, there are only 11,000 reefer trucks that carry 4 million MT of perishable goods annually; against a requirement of 70,000 pack houses, there are only 250. He estimated the need for an investment of Rs. 1 lakh crore in the cold chain sector.

Lalit Gandhi – Senior VP, Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, Industry & Agriculture – suggested that the 16 unutilised airports in Maharashtra could be used for cargo connectivity for farm produce.

Eknath Dawale – Agriculture Secretary, Maharashtra – talked about the shift in focus from production to income, which requires value addition by minimising production losses through post-harvest management by putting in place an integrated cold chain.

Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari – Chief Guest – mentioned that different regions have different issues, which need to be analysed and appropriate regionspecific solutions found.

Deepak Sood – Secretary General, ASSOCHAM – proposed the vote of thanks. The afternoon session saw two interesting panel discussions. The first, on the topic ‘Technology, Industry Perspective and Capacity’, was chaired by Dr. S. K. Goel. The panellists were Pankaj Mehta – MD, Carrier Transicold, Mukesh Bhelwal – Assistant Manager, NABARD, Laxmikant Dandavate – Director Marketing, Star Coolers and Condensers, and N. Srinivas – Director Technical, Lloyd Insulation (India).

The second panel discussion was on the topic ‘Emergence of Automation in Logistics, Peripheral Services and Futureready in Post Harvest and Clean Energy’. It was chaired by Pankaj Garg – Founder MD, Innovation Through Energy (Japan). The panellists were Srinivasan – Senior GM, CONCOR, Udyan Kohli – Head SCS, HyFun Foods, Rajan Raje – CEO, Nichem Solutions, and Bipin Revankar – Director, Eco Fresh Cold Storage & Warehousing.