HYDERABAD: While the State and Central governments have been encouraging cold storage and food processing industries in a major way in recent times, those running these units are unable to find staff with the right skill sets to operate them. These units operate under complex technicalities in a controlled environment and require highly skilled staff.
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research’s (ICAR) ‘Student READY- Rural Entrepreneurship Awareness Development Yojana,’ an eight-week programme for students pursuing horticultural science, may soon bridge this gap while helping the students become industry-ready.
The BSc (Horticulture) final year students of College of Horticulture at Mojerla in Wanaparthy, affiliated to Konda Laxman Telangana State Horticultural University, are presently on the programme.
They are being taught the complexities of fruit processing, cold storage solutions and value-addition, by being attached with the industries in and around Hyderabad.
V Shravan, one of the students, is being trained at Coldspace Agrotech India Private Limited, where he has been learning the various aspects of storing fruits like apples, dates, kiwi, custard apple, apple ber, mangoes, pomegranate and ripening of bananas.
“There are 5,300 cold storage units across the country. Among them, 325 are in Telangana. Most of the units in the country are being used to store potatoes, while other horticultural crops rot and perish. We are unable to cater to the demand for fruits and vegetables due to this wastage,” he observes.
Due to lack of knowledge and technical know-how, coupled with high cost of establishment and operation, the already established cold storage units do not reach their optimum utilisation levels, he feels. Shravan wants to pursue his MBA after graduating in horticulture science so that he can become part of the food processing and cold storage boom which is expected to happen soon.