‘Food worth 44,000 crore goes waste per year’

NEW DELHI: Fruits, grains and vegetables worth Rs 44,000 crore are lost every year due to lack of adequate storage infrastructure, the government told Parliament on Friday.

Admitting this in the RS, food processing industries minister Sharad Pawar said the annual wastage of fruits and vegetables was estimated at Rs 13,309 crore. If wastage of rice, wheat, cereals and others was taken into account, it would increase to Rs 44,000 crore, he added.

Quoting a report of the Planning Committee-appointed Saumitra Chaudhuri committee in 2012, Pawar said the panel indicated the country needed 61.3 million tonnes of cold storage against the present capacity of around 29 million tonnes. He also said FDI in retail would help in developing cold storage infrastructure.