Meghalaya: Coolers distributed to five vegetable vendors in state

A CORRESPONDENT

SHILLONG: RuKart along with Bethany Society Shillong on Tuesday gave away, ‘sabjee coolers’ to five vegetables vendors of the city - one from Iewduh and four from Laitumkhrah Market. These sabjee coolers were designed by the department of centre for technology alternative for rural areas, IIT Bombay.

RuKart (rukart.org) has been developing cooling adaptation technology while focusing on developing scalable green solutions that contribute to poverty eradication, affordable and clean energy and economic growth locally. This sabjee cooler does not need electricity or fuel like - diesel or petrol to function.

According to data available about two-thirds of farmers in the country to own 0.5 hectare land size and growing horticulture crops in around 0.5 to 0.6 acreage of plot size.

Storage technologies cost lakhs and are designed for bulk 3,000 - 5,000 kg storage. The penetration of this bulk cold storage and its consistent usage remains a question. Fruit & Vegetable retailers are facing a similar issue. Aware of the huge mismatch between the on-ground reality and technology being served, Vikash Jha and Sharayu Kulkarni bootstrapped RuKart in May 2019. RuKart developed an affordable, Recurring Cost free and Scalable Green technology - Sabjee Cooler with dual benefits of Natural Ripening & Storage - that requires no utilities and maintenance.

Subjee Cooler has proven helpful for farmers/retailers who deal with flower/ fruit/ mushroom/ vegetables. These farmers/retailers find the non-recurring Sabjee Cooler useful in preserving the colour, freshness, and tenacity of produce.

Conventionally, the retailers store the fresh produce covered with gunny sacks and sprinkle water on it to keep them fresh, but unfortunately, it is being observed that the fresh F&V starts blackening due to fungus attack and excess moisture, and ultimately huge quantity of produce gets wasted.

Since October 2019, 1,600 plus Sabjee Coolers have been installed across 12 states in India. In Meghalaya another 140 more such sabjee coolers are expected to be distributed in the coming months.

Also Read: Assam: Prices of fresh vegetables skyrocketing in Guwahati city (sentinelassam.com)

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