Up to half of milk, fruits & veggies produced in India goes waste due to poor cold chain infra: Study

Despite India being world’s largest producer for milk and second largest producer of fruits and vegetables, about 40 to 50 per cent of the total production valued of $440 billion (bn) ends up wasting, noted a recent ASSOCHAM-MRSS India study.

ASSOCHAM is the fountainhead of knowledge for Indian industry, which is all set to redefine the dynamics of growth and development in the Knowledge Based Economy.

“India has about 6,300 cold storage facilities with a capacity of 30.11 million metric tons, which are only able to store about 11 per cent of the country’s total perishable produce,” said ASSOCHAM secretary general while releasing the study in New Delhi today.

Highlighting that about 60 per cent of this capacity is spread across states of UP, West Bengal, Gujarat and Punjab, the ASSOCHAM-MRSS India joint study noted, “The situation is severe in southern part of India due to unavailability of cold storage units, moreover as the climate is far more hot and humid.”

The study estimated that cold chain market in India valued at $167.24 bn in 2016 is projected to reach $234.49 bn by 2020. The cold chain market has grown steadily in the last few years and this trend is projected to continue until 2020.

While there are many positive changes in Indian cold chain market, however high operating costs is a major roadblock for sector’s overall growth.

“Shortage of adequate infrastructure, lack of trained personnel, outdated technology and inconsistent power supply are other major obstacles in growth of cold chain infrastructure in India,” according to the ASSOCHAM secretary general.

He added that setting up cold-chain involves higher infrastructure cost for operations. “Given the expected growth in grocery retail to $847.9 bn by 2020 from $500 bn in 2012, there are some changes expected by the industry as a whole to ensure three significant areas of handling food collection, storage and transportation to be more cost effective for retailers.”

Technology interventions like GPS and sensors be used to centrally monitor and track the temperature, position of truck to ensure better control on product quality.

While retail cold chain as a sector is currently struggling to be more efficient, there is a lot of headroom for improvement with the help of operational and technology level changes which can be brought into the overall system.

By implementing self-updating and hosted computer systems, cloud storage offers many benefits to warehousing include cutting down on maintenance, infrastructure and labour costs that come from installation and upgrading of warehouse management systems.

The industry should be switching the man-to-goods process to goods-to-man, machines like these are just an example of how robotics can be used to revolutionise logistics.

Indian travel tourism industry to grow by 2.5%

The travel and tourism industry has supported in 2016 over 25, 400,000 jobs i.e., 5.8 percent of the total employment and has tremendous potential to rise by 2.5 percent provided the budgetary allocation was enhanced from the current 0.9% of the total allocation to at least 0.15% in 2018-19 as per a study of India’s business association the ASSOCHAM. It has proposed developmental interventions including tourism infrastructure development and the emergence of tourism themes.

The study says the formation of National Tourism Authority (NTA) also needs to be taken up on priority and position it as an important authority. NTA could be the nodal agency for several activities like investment promotion, marketing, escalation resolutions, capturing and dissemination of more real-time tourism statistics, developmental planning and implementation coordination, extending support to State counterparts etc.

Tourism sector should be accorded lower GST slabs to make the Indian tourism industry more competitive as compared to other affordable global destinations according to the report.

Also, India is fast developing into a medical and wellness tourism hub of Asia because of superior quality healthcare services at a low treatment cost. Treatment of major surgeries in India costs approximately 20 percent of that in developed countries. Creation of Medical hubs through PPP will boost medical tourism. Wellness tourism should be promoted by marketing indigenous methodologies such as Yoga and Ayurveda.

The total contribution of Travel & Tourism to Indian GDP was US$ 208.9 Bn, 9.6 percent of GDP in 2016, and is forecast to rise by 6.7 percent in 2017 and 10.0 percent of GDP in 2027. Further Travel & Tourism investment in 2016 accounted for 5.7 percent of total investment (USD34.0bn). It should rise by 4.5 percent in 2017, and rise by 5.7 percent p.a. over the next ten years to US$ 61.8bn in 2027, 5.7 percent of total.

India’s tourism and foreign income earnings are direct function of its Air Service Agreements. India has Bilateral Air Service Agreements, and follows a liberal Air Transport Policy relating to inbound international tourist charter operations. Although the policy on inbound charters is hassle-free, operators face issues with airport infrastructure, slots and delays in obtaining permissions from India’s Director General Civil Aviation and other bodies which has a detrimental impact on the tourism.

India witnessed 8 Mn foreign tourist arrivals in CY2015, which has grown at a CAGR of ~6.0 percent during the period from CY2007 to CY2015. As per Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) estimates, the number of foreign tourist arrivals is expected to rise up to 12 million by CY2019, growing at a CAGR of 9.2 percent.

Its time for zero tolerance to curb nuisance!

Practically every day the newspapers report of road accidents where school/college students usually are the victims of their own fault. Worst is to read if the victims succumb to road injuries. Really dreadful! God knows the trauma the families of the deceased have to pass through.

Yes, the context of this piece is precisely the horrendous way the teenagers or at times kids not even in their teenage seen zooming left, right and centre on bikes and scooters on heavy traffic road and crowded areas some to their colleges/schools and most for merry-making and hooliganism. Believing their acts will impress others portray stupidity of the first order. Awful is when you see them without helmet the basic safety head-gear for any two-wheeler rider and pillion. Surprising but many of these youngsters coming from literate background don’t realise the fatal consequences they can meet as a result of overlooking safety norms. Parents too, usually, are responsible for such acts of their children.

Most of the deaths of the rider and pillion in road accidents involving reckless driving are due to head injuries. These could be averted with helmets.

One cannot understand what children derive by acts of overlooking safety issues for one lapse and it’s the end. So if this mindless act is to impress the opposite sex, what use it is if the actor is gone forever!

You may have noticed the youngsters today fancy hanging the helmets more on their arms while riding to wearing it. Some even wear helmets in a very indifferent fashion that juts on the forehead simply to fool themselves more than the cops. The pillion rider however feels privileged having not to wear the helmet as it is not mandatory by law.

A helmet is a form of protective gear worn to protect the head from injuries and not to fool the cop or just because it’s wearing is not mandatory. The safety is of you!

Wanting to know the reason for reckless driving I found while interacting with some boys and girls the reason simply laughable! I learnt they do this for sheer fantasies while others because of poor time management.

Not properly timing their travel to reach school or after school classes in hurry while speeding gets prone to accidents. A very indifferent explanation also came up by many youngsters who avoid helmets. This lot for the sake of retaining their hair style to impress the opposite sex prefer discarding it. How silly! Risking life to meaningless fashion!

The point I am trying to make here is the growing carelessness about road safety and rash driving among the young boys and girls mostly in their teens as seen in the town and elsewhere in the country. As aware citizens it is the joint duty of all to see how this be checked.

While many schools, colleges, parents  and even the Regional Transport Office or Regional Transport Authority (RTO/RTA) people in the recent past have started impressing on road safety, safe driving and awareness about wearing helmet through seminars and personal interactions as result of increasing road accidents involving youngsters, all the appeals are unfortunately going to deaf ears. Its time stringent methods needed to control this worrisome issue which not only is a threat to the offender but to other innocent people on road who fall prey to such nuisance.

The one solution besides the ongoing traffic and road safety and road sense education/awareness campaigns that may set things right is a need to devise a sensor for two wheelers that may buzz aloud if the rider speeding beyond a limit. This can alert everyone around and the traffic cops as well. It will also be a humiliation to the rider riding a vehicle signalling alert.

To make sure the sensors are not disconnected to avoid buzzing the connection is so made that it links to the ignition. If one fiddles with the gadget to tamper it the vehicle won’t start. This is devisable for sure. It may sound a bit absurd at this moment but is practically possible if the government wants.

All two wheelers may have this devise in-built during manufacture; however for the existing ones it be retrofitted. This will ease to check all two-wheelers by the Regional Transport Office or Regional Transport Authority (RTO/RTA) and the cops.

You may remember in early nineteen nineties two wheelers and many four-wheelers in our country did not have indicator lights as it was not mandatory by law then. It was a result of the many accidents that came to fore because of indicators that the government made it mandatory for all vehicles to have them. The existing vehicles made to retrofit the lights. I still remember having had to install two ugly-looking frog eyed kind indicators on the front and rear of my scooter. Likewise, when the CNG/LPG kits made mandatory in certain States, the existing vehicles made to retrofit them. So retrofitting is possible.

Similarly, in an era of digital technology galore, where talks of sensors, nano, micro chip abuzz on even the new currency notes after demonetisation or for the matter the growing of cloud computing capable of storage of unimaginable volumes of data and similar other such amazing examples which were practically unthinkable off till some time back why can’t sensors a device which detect or measures a physical property not come to saving lives.

Its time Uttarakhand emerge as a model state and raise voice on this important issue which be replicated across the country to save reckless riders and those not using helmets from untimely death in road accidents.

Coupled with the technology aspect, the devising of a sensor to check speed, the administration and the public should adopt a “zero tolerance” policy to end undesirable conduct against the erring youngsters. While the cops do their bit, the public should also come forward to tell the traffic management cell via some toll-free number providing the vehicle registration details of reckless drivers for necessary action by the law.

   

As an apt add-on to a “zero tolerance” policy the government must make it mandatory for all school and colleges going youngsters to have their hairs cut the army recruits style. For girls oily hair plaits be made mandatory. If the youngsters do not listen the civilised way, this will instil discipline and keep them away from wrong notion and fantasies. When hairs for which some youngsters crave for be chopped off the problem to some extend be weeded out. With small hairs and oily plaits they will prefer wearing helmet to taking it off. Any youngster below 20 years if found riding a two-wheeler with improper hair cut or without plaited hairs be penalised and their driving licence confiscated.

The therapy of hair cut the military style or any clumsy form is successful in Europe and the US. Parents in these countries use this method as a cure for their naughty and misbehaving kids. Its time for India to try this therapy! We need it more than anyone else!

For the kid’s not even in the teenage bracket, those found ignoring the rules and riding two-wheelers there parents be first penalised and put behind bars for few days as a lesson for exposing their children to accidents and creating nuisance for the public.

All that suggested as measures for road safety; rash driving and use of helmets may sound absurd and laughable at this point of time but definitely a way to tackle the grave problem of rising road accidents involving youngsters.

If necessary the government can adopt the above stated measures even for adults also many of whom overlook traffic rules and regulations.

To carry out this kind of exercise necessary legislation be put in place failing which the problem will only rise in the future. If we want a safe India, the government has to think on these and similar other lines as priority issue.

Judicious approach needed for planning public welfare schemes

I read in the local newspapers of the Doon a few days back about some citizens raising voice against the ongoing beautification of section of Rajpur Road with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) local representatives. ADB is involved with this project. While raising the issue was okay there needs to be concrete points of argument for a meaningful dialogue least the issue fizzles out. This is exactly what I could gauge reading the news item.

At a discussion where the subject opposed for a good cause one needs firm footing with logical facts than go astray and dilute the subject. While issues such as opposing opening food joints or warning the developers of restraining cutting trees on the stretch under beautification are important yet monotonous to ears. These holds no gravity for no one will dare cut trees on large-scale openly or accommodate food joints and end up in a muddle or even prosecution. If the government wants trees felled, they have pretty good development excuses which refrain comments. The past has proved of this.

In fact a more appropriate talk of the discussion by the enlightened citizens with the ADB should have been to suggest winding up of the ongoing meaningless Rajpur Road beautification as the area is already beautiful and serene with natural settings.

With no ill towards anyone and in the interest of the region I feel miserable is the town planning and landscaping going on at some places which include section of Rajpur Road. Pity but “Funny Schemes” implemented in the name of beautification. God know who is the real brain behind these silly schemes.

Tell me who on earth may like to relax by a busy highway side! No sensible person or a family may want to sit on a narrow patch of land aside a busy, dusty highway to relax while driving en-route the area or leisurely sit there on a sunny day of the winters. I am yet to see such foolish blokes’. The only ones doing such an act will be someone either off his rockers or one who has to make an emergency stop, none others. Yes, reference relates to the Rajpur Road roadside beautification work.

You may wonder what I am trying to point out in my argument. Drive down ahead of National Institute for the Visually Handicapped (Blind School) on the busy highway section of the Rajpur Road and you will see stone tiles being fixed with some landscaping on both sides of the narrow road on its still narrower side paths stretching up to the Mussoorie diversion in Rajpur. At first it appeared the side section of the busy road tiled to broaden it only to later realise the fancy tiles and landscaping was with a different intent.

The area being tiled for a few months now was already a green patch for ages with trees providing a natural setting. In a bid to make it artificially fancy to natural setting, stone tiles lay with easy chairs and benches placed for converting the section into a relaxing spot for the passer-by’s, pedestrians and tourists on way to Mussoorie.

This artificially landscaping will lead to many environmental, sanitation, human safety and traffic management issues.

The basic questions that arise in the first instance are why the natural setting compromised to an artificial one? Why stone tiles fixed up to the tree trunks or up to very near to them is another question. Embedding the lower part of the tree trunk with stone tiles or concrete can hinder the growth of a plant which can ultimately even perish.

From the safety angle too if passer-by’s and tourists flocking to relax here on the benches or even stop-by can become an accident prone area as zooming vehicles come and go towards Rajpur and Mussoorie. Neither the road nor the side patch is broad enough to accommodate people halting here. Landscaping and tiling this area will tempt anyone to stop.

There be severe issues related to traffic chaos on this stretch of the road as the stopping vehicles are bound to cause erratic parking by people getting down for relaxing, obstructing the smooth flow of the traffic. This means unnecessarily turning this patch into a bottle neck with all adversities.

To cap it all, most amazing fact is this relaxing zone covers area even next to the President of India’s Estate. People merrily having grub and dirtying the place right in front of the President of India’s mansion will be pathetic. Will security issues as a result of this not be a concern? It is time a serious pondering needed by the administration on all such ongoing and up-coming projects besides the Rajpur Road beautification in question.

What my friends (the group of enlightened citizens mentioned above) have argued with the ADB that I have mentioned holds little or no good at all. Asking for not allowing food joints will invariably come true the other way. Those relaxing or stopping here will definitely munch food articles only to spoil the place causing another concern of sanitation and cleanliness. So even if no food-joints set up here, this place once paved, will attract temporary eateries.

As for sounding warning to the developers of this stretch of the road to restrict chopping of trees it again holds no good. One will never dare openly chop so many trees. If large numbers of trees felling required as we have seen in the past on the pretext of development, the government know the ways.

So the only argument that sums it up all is the outright scraping of the worthless project, saving precious tax papers money, environment and a host of other issues related to it.  

How such works carried out without a proper study of all pros and cones is surprising. For an organisation like the ADB its involvement in such works engrossed with so many lacunae does not speak high. The government should also debate before giving its go-ahead for such schemes. Beauty does not lie in artificial artefacts. True beauty is in simplicity. Simplicity means not disturbing the natural environs with which this region endowed with. Our real beauty is in our natural environment, let it stay that way. Needs to save our environment and green surrounding and not destroy it is required.

Mahatma tamed his anger for ultimate peace

The world remembers Mahatma Gandhi with reverence and gratitude for showing people the path of peace to do and crack the toughest.

Without writing anything beyond on the magnanimous personality, the father of the nation, I would just share a different aspect of his life that we all may have known of but worth emulating. I recently came across the some extracts from the book “Gift of Anger” authored by Arun Gandhi the fifth grandson of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or “Mahatma Gandhi” that talks of the ten extraordinary life lessons that he learnt during his two-year stay at Sevagram Ashram, Wardha as a child.

While the other nine you have to read through the book, the one aspect that stood out which I want to share is a great quality of how Gandhiji converted his anger into gift. The book vividly describes this quality of the Mahatma as it says, “We have learnt to abuse the power of anger that cause death, destruction, but anger could be a powerful and useful emotion if we learn to channel the energy constructively”. We all know how against the toughest circumstances of India’s independence struggle where anybody could have lost his cool, the Mahatma treaded the path with ease not that he did not experience extreme emotions like anger but made that a tool of his strength.

What astonished me of the above lines of the book was that while Mahatma Gandhi synonymous to peace or better known as an apostle of peace was hot minded like any usual human being but what stood him apart was the control he had on the reign of his temperament. He firmly gripped it to not let the emotions rule him.

When Gandhiji faced injustice in South Africa he moved to anger but instead of abusing the emotion, he chose to use it to find a solution. The book vividly touches on how anger if used intelligently help focus on the problem. When we abuse anger, we focus on the object or person we are angry with. As civilised humans, we need to learn to focus on the problem and not the person the message of the book.

Undoubtedly the root of all the evil that we see and experience today is anger. According to Arun Gandhi one great lesson he has imbibed from his grandfather that he has highlighted is the need to channel anger such that it ultimately does good to harm. In a flash of anger, one does things and says things that can change the course of the life. Once done, we usually regret on them but to no use as it is too late by then. Every one needs to ponder on this unsaid message of Mahatma Gandhi according to the author.

Harvard University findings on the subject too say more than eighty percent of the violence we experience is due to anger. So, if we learn to use this emotion intelligently, we can reduce violence by eighty percent. Learning to harness the energy of anger for constructive purposes is a lifelong exercise, priceless!

Let us all resolve on the birth anniversary of the father of the nation to shun anger by way of intelligently putting it in ways to reap benefit from this emotion to solve problem rather than aggravate them. If we are able to understand this quality of the Mahatma it will be a big homage to his soul and our personal selves. 

More on how Mahatma Gandhi took control on his anger can be more explicitly read in Arun Gandhi’s “Gift of Anger”.