ROURKELA: Even as large cold storages, set up in the district, are stuttering on the brink of closure due to lack of demand, the administration’s move to promote smaller cold rooms with 30 tonne capacity each has not evoked much enthusiasm. The Horticulture Directorate, in the last three years, has approved 64 proposals for setting up cold storages under the National Horticulture Mission. Around 10 of them were set up in Sundargarh sub-division.
Deputy Director of Horticulture Jageteswar Behera said setting up of a power-operated cold room requires an investment of around `15 lakh and its owner is entitled to a subsidy of `10.5 lakh. “The idea is to allow the owner to store his own horticulture crops and extend the facility to others on rent,” he said. However, promoter of a 5,000-tonne capacity cold storage in Bonai block and former vice president of Odisha Cold Storage Association Prabhat Tibrewal said, of the 24 large cold storages set up in the state in the last four years, at least 20 are on the verge of closure owing to low utilisation due to failure of Potato Mission and unavailability of local horticulture crops.
“After being persuaded by the Government and lured by the 70 per cent subsidy, I invested around `3 crore and also availed a bank loan of `4 crore for setting up a cold storage. But now I am faced with bankruptcy due to unorganised and non-professional approach to farming,” he said.
Tibrewal apprehends like the owners of large cold storages, the owners of smaller ones too will suffer due to operational issues. “Time taken by vegetables to get spoilt vary. Only if the farmers grow horticulture crops that require cold storage specifications, will the facility be profitable,” he said.
The owners of cold storages in the district have sought a holistic approach to ensure availability of local crops and fear by the time government adopts an integrated approach, such facilities would shut down.