Three years after the Container Corporation of India, a ministry of railways enterprise, first experimented entering the cold chain business, hoping to ride the organised retail boom, the ministry of railways has once again tried to launch the not so successful cold chain business in this year’s Railway Budget.

Explaining the rationale for such a move, railway minister Mamata Banerjee said, “Our country suffers an unacceptable loss of about Rs 35,000-40,000 crore every year towards wastage of fruits and vegetables. The railways proposes to introduce special trains to carry perishable products like fruits and vegetables, fish from identified production clusters to consumer centres.” She added the railways will encourage creation of facilities for setting up cold storage and temperature controlled perishable cargo centres through the public-private partnership mode”.

India currently constitutes 13% of the world’s vegetables and 10% of the world’s total fruit production. The railways would associate professional agency to identify locations and for designing proper services.

Two years ago, a number of retail giants such as Reliance Retail, ITC and the Future Group had asked the railways to provide them with supply chain logistics. The railways had also agreed to provide them land for national, regional and rural hubs. The companies were expected to pool in about Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 30,000 crore for setting up infrastructure. The railways even invited expressions of interest from companies interested. However, nothing happened, as retailers preferred roadways as a more cost effective means to rail.

A day before, even the Economic Survey recommended multi-brand retail formats, starting with the food retailing subject to conditions such as retailers also create wholesale market where unorganised or traditional retailers may purchase the produce. If given a go-ahead, this would defiantly give a leg up to the railways cold chain programme.