A centre of excellence (CoE) to promote sustainable cooling innovation and accelerate deployment of energy-efficient refrigeration for food and vaccine supply chains across India opened on August 9 at the GMR Innovex Campus near Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad.
“It is first of its kind in the country and inspired by the success and learnings of a similar initiative in Africa,” IT and Industries Minister K. T. Rama Rao said, inaugurating the Telangana CoE for Sustainable Cooling and Cold Chain, a joint initiative of Telangana State Trade Promotion Corporation; knowledge partner Centre for Sustainable Cooling (CSC), University of Birmingham; United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); and the GMR Group.
“We will follow a hub-and-spoke model with the hub in the form of a national centre in Hyderabad and spokes covering rural communities across the State and hopefully other regions,” he said, highlighting how sustainable cooling solutions have assumed significance amid the enhanced importance of cold chain facilities in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.
“The world realised during Covid how food security and availability and accessibility of medicines was mission critical to survive. Cold chain is extremely important towards making both [food and medicines] constantly available... sustainability of [solutions is equally] important,” he told the gathering.
The focus of CoE in the first phase will be on post harvest practice as well as food and health cold chain, while thermal comfort, electronics and data centres are likely to figure in the next phase. The impact of its work will be an increase in farmers income, storing produce in the best way and reduced food losses. A solutions development lab and demonstration centre, a model pack-house and community cooling hubs will form part of the CoE. Besides coming up with solutions to help farmers preserve perishable produce, the centre will deliver upskilling and training programmes for farmers and local agri-businesses, agri-start-ups and entrepreneurs, equipment technicians and researchers.
The facility will also focus on new and sustainable technologies for vaccine and pharma cold chain.
The CoE follows an MoU between the State government and University of Birmingham in 2022. British Deputy High Commissioner in Hyderabad Gareth Owens, Director of CSC, University of Birmingham Toby Peters, IT and Industries Secretary Jayesh Ranjan, ED-South and CIO of GMR Group SGK Kishore and Jimmy Washington from the Carrier Group, senior officials and industry representatives participated in the inauguration.
