It is estimated that 40% of all the food produced in India is wasted. That’s a ridiculous figure in a country where 40% of the population is either underfed or is starving. There has been endless discourse on the subject and a glut of grandiose announcements by public leaders at different levels about setting up cold storage chains and warehouses but nothing ever got implemented. Things are about to change though – a team greenhorn engineers from IIT Kharagpur successfully demonstrated their innovative portable solar-powered cold storage for agro-produce.
This is precisely the kind of product that small scale farmers in India have been waiting for although the cost needs to get rationalized to a level where it will make commercial sense. Like most other solar-powered products it offers excellent long term financial benefits but the initial investment at this point of time is not practical and certain techno-economic loose ends need to be integrated to get the market price down to rational levels. The capacity ranges from 3.5 to 10 metric tons while the cost of ranges from Rs. 6 Lakhs to to Rs. 9 Lakhs.
The students responsible for coming up with this innovation are Vivek Pandey and Rahul Sharma, both from IIT Kharagpur. They along with other team members developed this innovation at the Technology Entrepreneurship Park of IIT Kharagpur. According to Pandey, “The thermal storage concept does not depend on grid electricity and after a two-year break-even, can generate over 40 percent increase in profits. Normally cold storages work on electricity and require battery back ups. But with our innovation, the solar powered ones does away with need for battery backups and eliminates running cost”.
The portable cold storage units have a modular rack system which helps convenient storage of the produce which is designed to ensure proper flow of air. This is important for maintaining the freshness of the agro-produce to be stored in these units. The cooling system is based on the vapor compression cycle and is powered by rooftop mounted photo voltaic panels. Refrigeration during the night needs no battery and is equipped with a back up system based on thermal storage technology. The unit has an estimated lifespan of around 15 years and easily fits in a truck or hooked to a tractor which suits the needs of the farmers perfectly.
The duo of Pandey and Sharma won the Rs. 10 Lakh ‘DuPont: The Power of Shunya’ award for their innovation and have already filed for four different patents for their revolutionary agro-foodstuff storage facilities that come in capacities of 3.5, 5 and 10 tons at present with more capacity variations to be added in future. They have already sold a few units of their innovative product in Karnataka and have set up their business in Bengaluru under the name and style of Ecofrost Technologies. Their immediate objective is to lower the cost and scale up production capacity and they are primarily eying the western Indian market with its rich agricultural hinterland.
India wastes a staggering 21 million tons of wheat every year which equals the total quantity produced by a major wheat exporting country like Australia. In a country where 250 million people survive through varying levels of starvation and semi-starvation, this colossal wastage points to the harsh realities of the bottlenecks that paralyzes India’s national reconstruction and development efforts. The best answer to such inefficiency is the kind of innovation that young techno-entrepreneurs like Pandey and Sharma brought about. Such effective home-grown technologies will help India leapfrog out of the shameful and indiscriminate wastage of millions of tons of food simultaneously with millions of her citizens going to bed hungry every night.