India's first and biggest cold chain excellence centre opens at Shamshabad

HYDERABAD: "As a student, I was travelling to one of the hill stations from Pune on a local train. Someone switched on the fan when a classmate of mine couldn’t bear air hitting on her face. When I asked why, she said she is only used to conditioned air. That’s the first time in my life that the word AC could be flipped and be called conditioned air," said Telangana IT & Industries Minister KT Rama Rao (KTR).

The Minister shared this personal anecdote on ‘conditioned air’, to explain its purpose while inaugurating the Telangana Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Sustainable Cooling and Cold Chain at the GMR Innovex Campus near Hyderabad Airport on Wednesday. The centre aims to promote food and health security, empower farmers and boost exports.

According to a statement by the State Government, the Telangana Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Sustainable Cooling and Cold-Chain was a novel initiative for promoting sustainable cooling innovation and accelerating the deployment of energy-efficient refrigeration for food and vaccine supply chains across India. The CoE is a joint initiative between the Government of Telangana (Telangana State Trade Promotion Corporation), Centre for Sustainable Cooling (CSC), University of Birmingham, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the GMR Group.

"It is the outcome of an MoU singed between Government of Telangana and University of Birmingham in 2022. University of Birmingham will serve as the knowledge partners and will help develop the centre into a state-of-the-art research and innovation hub that will help deploy needs-driven and equitable system-level cooling and cold-chain solutions in Telangana and India," the statement said.

Speaking about the CoE, KTR said, “The CoE is a first-of-its-kind initiative in India. It will have state-of-the-art equipment and will serve as a one stop solution to address all challenges around cold chain ecosystem in the country. It will develop and demonstrate cooling technologies and solutions that meet the State’s needs and could be scaled up with global reach.”

The Centre of Excellence would have a solutions development lab & demonstration centre, a model pack-house and community cooling hubs.

"It is expected to have a significant impact on the lives of farmers in Telangana. Currently, many farmers are unable to sell their perishable produce because they do not have access to cold storage facilities. The Centre will come up with solutions that will help farmers preserve perishable produce and improved quality of goods. Adopting a ‘hub and spoke’ model, the CoE will deliver upskilling and training programmes for farmers and local agri-businesses, agri-start-ups and entrepreneurs, equipment technicians and researchers.

"Telangana currently exports USD 4 Billion worth pharma and vaccine exports which are dependent on an efficient cold chain ecosystem. The center will also focus on new and sustainable technologies for vaccine and pharma cold chain and will contribute to the further growth of vaccine exports from the state," the statement added.