Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
towards post‐harvest related areas, while the larger chunk is allocated to area
expansion. Further, the present strategy of tackling post‐harvest losses in fresh
horticulture produce revolves mainly around extending financial incentives and
tax relaxations for promoting capital investment in pack‐houses and cold chain
infrastructure. There is limited acceptance of this by stake‐holders.
In a very large number of cases, aggregation of horticulture produce, its transport
to nearby markets, trading system for fresh produce and economic viability of
PHM solutions have not been considered in an integrated project mode while
implementing schemes relating to PHM. There has been too much reliance on the
classic / theoretical model.
The 11 th Plan strategy mainly revolved around promoting capital investment
in PHM infrastructure: pack houses and integrated cold chain, fruit ripening
chambers, and specialised storage structures had been initially introduced with
financial assistance from Government. However, the off‐take of pack houses and
reefer transport system has been generally limited to high value commodities
meant for exports or limited high‐end domestic markets. In spite of efforts made
to promote multi-chamber, multi‐commodity cold storages, majority of cold
storages have been set up for storage of potatoes which are also used for storage
of a few other commodities like red chillies, tamarind, apples etc. Integrated pack
houses have been set up mainly for products like table grapes and chives produced
for exports to developed countries.
With the exception of certain fruits like papaya, sweet lime, kinnow, acid lime
and fruits for export markets, there is generally lack of prescription regarding
production of quality fruits in terms of size, shape, weight, uniform colour,
texture, TSS: acid ratio, fruit pressure etc. When the percentage of quality fruits
in a harvested lot is low, the producer farmers are reluctant to carry out size
grading. There is no prescription for maturity indices of fruits too; as a result
fruits are harvested at pre‐mature stage or over‐ripe stage which may not meet
requirements of marketing. Indiscriminate use of pesticides is a problem in the
case of several high value fruits as well.
Annexures
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