The State as well as Central governments has been promoting cold storage and food processing industries in a big way but those running these units are not able to find employees with the right skill sets to operate them.
These units operate under difficult technicalities in a controlled environment and need highly skilled staff.
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research's (ICAR) 'Student READY- Rural Entrepreneurship Awareness Development Yojana,' an eight-week program for horticultural science students, may soon bridge this gap while assisting students in becoming industry-ready.
The program is now being attended by BSc (Horticulture) final year students from the College of Horticulture at Mojerla in Wanaparthy, which is connected with Konda Laxman Telangana State Horticultural University.
By being attached to industries in and around Hyderabad, they are learning the complexity of fruit processing, cold storage solutions, and value-addition.
V Shravan, one of the students, is receiving training at Coldspace Agrotech India Private Limited, where he is learning about preserving fruits such as apples, dates, kiwi, custard apple, apple ber, mangoes, pomegranate, and banana ripening.
"Across the country, there are 5,300 cold storage units. 325 of them are in Telangana. The majority of the storage facilities in the country are utilized to preserve potatoes, while other horticulture crops rot and perish. We are unable to cater to the demand for fruits and vegetables due to this wastage,” he observes.
Due to lack of knowledge and technical know-how, coupled with high cost of establishment and operation, the already established cold storage units do not reach their optimum utilization levels, he feels. Shravan wants to pursue his MBA after graduating from horticultural science so that he can become part of the next food processing and cold storage boom which is expected to happen soon.
