Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has called upon the cooperative institutions to make a contribution to expansion of storage and cold storage capacity in the country.
Addressing the 72nd Meeting of General Council of National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), the minister said that cooperatives had an important role in the post-harvest scenario.
NCDC sanctioned creation of nearly half a million tonnes of storage space in 2010-11 and almost the same amount of capacity in 2011-12 including repairing and improving of the existing godowns, added the minister.
According to the official sources, developing a ring of cold stores would be one of the maor activities of NCDC, it would also be an agency responsible for accrediting warehouses. the new arrangement would ensure more effective supply chains, better grading and quality, better risk management, higher price paymentfor farmers and better services for consumers.
According to Pawar, the union cabinet has approved of an amendment to the NCDC act to cover producer companies within its range so that they may get supported by it.
Mr pawar was all praise for ncdc and made a particular mention of its continuous efforts to improve its performance to be able to meet the challenges that lie ahead of it.