Tuesday, March 29, 2011

CIPHET transfers EC Room & Structure technology

Ludhiana, March 29



Central Institute of Post Harvest Engineering and Techn1ology (CIPHET) today signed a memorandum of understanding to transfer technology of Evaporative Cooled (EC) room & structure to a Gurdaspur based entrepreneur. The institute's innovative technologies provide low cost and effective storage to farmers and entrepreneurs.

After getting technology, Dr Jatinder Singh, General Manager, Krishan Food& Seed Processing, said that they were growing mushroom at very large scale. "Recently, we have started constructing green house in the area of nine thousand square yard for growing vegetables and flowers. EC Room &structure would help to increase shelf life of fruits and flowers and also we will use them as growing chamber for mushroom cultivation during off season," he added.

Storage of fruits and vegetables, being a pershiable commodity is of paramount concern to reduce losses after their harvest. There increase in shelf life could avoid disadvantage of price fall during the glut seasons. In order to solve farmers problem, the CIPHET has come out with innovative solution.

While EC room, which is a double walled structure with wet sand in between, could store two tonnes of fruits and vegetables, the cooling padded EC structure has capacity of 5 to 7 tonnes and ideal for bigger storage requirements.EC room developed at cost of around Rs 70 thousand could store fruits and vegetables upto 2 tonnes. Dr Sangeeta Chopra, Senior Scientist, who has developed this room, said that it could maintain humidity as high as 85 percent and temperature remains 12 to 15 degree Celsius lower than the outside. "Thus increasing shelf life of fruits and vegetables and saving the farmers from distress selling."



The higher capacity storage structure has been developed by Dr S.N Jha, Head Agricultural Structures and Environmental Control (AS&EC) and is suitable to maintain moderate low temperatures and sufficiently high relative humidity for short term storage of fresh fruits and vegetables. It has special design of roof, uses wetted pad to maintain lower temperature. "EC structure may cost about 1.5 to 2.0 lakh and has 5 to 7 tonn capacity," said Dr Jha. ITMU Incharge Dr D.M Kadam was also present on the occasion.



Director CIPHET Dr R.T Patil and Head of Transfer of Technology (TOT) Division Dr Deepak Raj Rai said that CIPHET also provides technical support after transferring technology. He said that interested farmers/entrepreneurs could contact TOT division in this regard.
News From: http://www.7StarNews.com

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