Government Schemes Aim to Reduce Post-Harvest Losses with Targeted Financial Assistance and Subsidies

There is no such target in the 100 day agenda as establishment of cold storage units is demand driven. However, Government is implementing various schemes for setting up of cold storage for perishable horticultural produce and godowns/ warehouses for foodgrains throughout the country to reduce the post-harvest losses.

Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare is implementing Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH) under which financial assistance is provided for various horticulture activities including construction/Expansion/ Modernization of cold storages of capacity up to 5000 MT in the country on the basis of Annual Action Plan (AAP) received from States/UTs. AAPs are prepared by the States/UTs based on their requirement, capacity and availability of resources. The component of Cold Storage is demand/entrepreneur driven for which Government assistance in the form of credit linked back ended subsidy is available at the rate of 35% of the project cost in general areas and 50% of the project cost in hilly and scheduled areas through respective State Horticulture Missions.

Besides, National Horticulture Board (NHB) is implementing a scheme namely “Capital Investment Subsidy for Construction/Expansion /Modernization of Cold Storages and Storages for Horticulture Products”. Under the scheme, credit linked back-ended subsidy at the rate of 35% of the capital cost of the project in general areas and 50% in case of North East, hilly & scheduled areas for construction/expansion/modernization of cold storage and Controlled Atmosphere (CA) storage of capacity above 5000 MT and up to 10000 MT is available. In case of North East region, the units with capacity above 1000 MT are also eligible for assistance.

Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) implements a Scheme for Integrated Cold Chain, Food Processing and Preservation Infrastructure as one of the components of Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana (PMKSY) with the objective of reducing post-harvest losses of horticulture and non-horticulture produce and providing remunerative price to farmers for their produce. Under the scheme, Ministry provides financial assistance in the form of grant-in-aid at the rate of 35% for general areas and 50% for North East and Himalayan States, ITDP areas and Islands for storage and transport infrastructure and at the rate of 50% and 75% respectively for value addition and processing infrastructure subject to a maximum grant-in-aid of Rs. 10.00 crore per project for setting up of integrated cold chain projects including irradiation facility. Standalone cold storages are not covered under the Scheme.

The Government is also implementing Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure (AMI), a sub-scheme of Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM) under which assistance is provided for construction of godowns/ warehouses in the country to enhance the storage capacity for agriculture produce. Under the scheme, Government provides subsidy at the rate of 25% for plain areas and 33.33% for NER, Hilly areas on capital cost of the project, based on the category of eligible beneficiary. Assistance is available to Individuals, Farmers, Group of farmers/growers, Agri-preneurs, Registered Farmer Produce Organizations (FPOs), Cooperatives, and state agencies etc.

All the above schemes are demand/entrepreneur driven through commercial ventures for which government assistance is provided based on the proposals received from the States/entrepreneur.

Further, to strengthen agriculture infrastructure in the country, Government has launched Agriculture Infrastructure Funds (AIF) of Rs. 1.00 lakh crore. Under AIF, there is provision for collateral free term loan upto Rs. 2.00 crore and interest subvention of 3% on the term loan availed for creation of post-harvest infrastructure including establishment of cold storages.

As per information received from Ministry of Food Processing Industries, a mobile app has been launched for upcoming 3^rd World Food India (WFI)– 2024 which is a seamless, secure mobile application that facilitates user with all the information related to WFI 24, including Buyer seller meeting, updates of the event agenda, speaker profiles, navigation feature (facilitate ease of access of the real time venue and locations).

Further, as per the study commissioned by Ministry of Food Processing Industries and carried out by NABARD Consultancy Services (NABCONS) published in 2022, the quantum of quantitative harvest and post-harvest losses in selected crops were observed to be in the range of 3.89% to 5.92% (cereals), 5.65% to 6.74% (pulses), 2.87% to 7.51% (oil seeds), 6.02% to 15.05% (fruits) and 4.87% to 11.61% (vegetables). The crop wise details are given below;

Annexure

Harvest and post–harvest losses of major agricultural crops and commodities

Source:  Study to determine Post-Harvest Losses of Agri. Produces in India commissioned by MoFPI and carried out by NABARD Consultancy Services (NABCONS) published in 2022.