ILAM: A cold store constructed nine years ago by Ilam municipality at the cost of Rs 60 million has been lying idle.
The cold store was built with the financial assistance of the Indian Embassy so as to protect fruits and vegetable production of the district for a longer time. Ironically the cold store with the capacity of 2,000 tons has remained dysfunctional.
Moreover the municipality is paying electricity tariffs every months without any of its use. “We issued bidding notice several times for contract-out of the store but none came”, information officer and administrative officer of the municipality Ramkumar Sah said. “Farmers did not show interest to store their yields.
They had a fear whether or not it works to protect their storage”. A huge investment is likely to go waste with the store building lying idle and decaying.
The store having ‘single chamber’ has not come to the use of farmers since it was built in a way to store only one kind of production at once. The store requires different temperatures to store diverse species of agriculture yields safely.
Problem emerged in its use when it was not made ‘multi-chamber’ in a way to store diverse fruits and vegetable productions.
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