Farmers Forced To Distress Sale Of Vegetables & Fruits For Lack Of Cold Storage In Odisha’s KoraputIn

Koraput: With the proposal to construct a cold storage of 50-ton capacity yet to take off in Koraput district, the farmers are forced to sell their vegetables and fruits produced in thousands of hectare at throwaway prices.

According to sources, the deputy registrar of cooperative societies (DRCS) had submitted the proposal for the cold storage under 4T large-area multipurpose societies (LAMPS) at Borigumma, Kumulipur, Nandapur and Kunduli to the registrar of the Cooperation department a year back. But there has been no response to the proposal till date.

Similarly, the proposal of the Horticulture department of the district to construct of cold storage of 10 ton capacity is yet to see the light of the day.

The farmers in the district cultivate vegetables including potato, sweet potato, onion and cauliflower, tamarind, turmeric besides fruits in around 22,000 hectare of land in these blocks.

But the president of managing committee of Koraput Central Cooperative (KCC) Bank, Iswar Chandra Panigrahi, said the farmers have to sustain huge loss in absence of adequate infrastructure to preserve their produce.

The district administration had submitted the proposal for cold storage after the Cooperation department sought the locations of the cold chambers in different LAMPS in the undivided Koraput. After the proposal is approved, the construction work would begin, he added.