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.
