The government has invited expression of interest (EoI) from the entrepreneurs for setting up multi product food irradiation units under integrated cold chain and value addition infrastructure or cold scheme.
The last date for submission of EoI for proposals under the cold chain scheme, a component central scheme – Pradhan Mantri Kisan SAMPADA Yojana, is September 21, according to a ministry of food processing industries the Ministry of Food Processing Industries statement.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget (2024-25) speech had announced that ‘financial support for setting up of 50 multi-product food irradiation units in the MSME sector will be provided.
The objective of the scheme is to support setting up food irradiation units for the treatment of perishable commodities like fruits, vegetables as well as for others for enhancing their shelf life.
The budgetary provision of Rs 179.8 crore has been made for the cold chain scheme for FY25.
Financial assistance in the form of grants-in-aid or subsidy will be provided to the eligible projects under the demand-driven Cold Chain scheme.
To improve shelf-life of onions and reduce storage losses, the government is aiming to irradiate 5000 tonne of the vegetable this fiscal has been procured from farmers for buffer stocking under the price stabilisation fund.
In FY24, as part of the pilot 1200 tonne of onion was irradiated using gamma rays and the protocol was developed by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. The BARC has developed onion-specific irradiation and cold storage system which extends storage life of ‘rabi’ onion upto 7.5 months.
