KT Rama Rao, Minister for IT and Industries, Government of Telangana, inaugurates India’s first Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold Chain, in the state of Telangana. The centre will promote innovations to make cooling solutions more sustainable, cutting down carbon emissions. It will boost pharma and agri exports from the state, promoting food and health security. The Centre will come up with solutions that will help farmers preserve perishable produce and improve the quality of goods.
KT Rama Rao said, “The Centre of Excellence is a first of its kind initiative in India. It will have state of the art equipment and will serve as a one stop solution to address all challenges around cold chain ecosystem in the country. It will develop & demonstrate cooling technologies and solutions that meet the state’s needs and could be scaled up with global reach”. He thanked University of Birmingham for choosing Hyderabad as well as industry partners including Carrier for supporting the initiative.
The Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold-Chain is a novel initiative for promoting sustainable cooling innovation and accelerating the deployment of energy-efficient refrigeration for food and vaccine supply chains across India.
It is the outcome of a MoU singed between Government of Telangana and University of Birmingham in 2022. University of Birmingham will serve as the knowledge partners and will help develop the centre into a state-of-the-art research and innovation hub that will help deploy needs-driven and equitable system-level cooling and cold-chain solutions in Telangana and India.
KT Rama Rao added, “As India moves up the value chain by emerging as a surplus nation in terms of food production and supplies, it will require more such sustainable solutions. The country will need more packaging solutions too. Phase One of the project would focus on post-harvest practices, food and health cold chains. Phase Two would be extended among other things to electronics and data centres as well.”
Key dignitaries who graced the inauguration were Gareth Owens, British Deputy High Commissioner in Hyderabad, Professor Toby Peters, Director, Centre of Sustainable Cooling, University of Birmingham, M Bikshapathi, Chairman, TSTPC, Jayesh Ranjan, IAS, Principle Secretary (IT and Industries).
