Kerala government's cold chain project, initially involving nine 100-tonne capacity cold rooms, nine refrigerated trucks and 35 airconditioned supermarkets with modified atmosphere packing (MAP) facilities, is already in the implementation stage. Wireless communication support in every control point will be a major feature of this cold chain. Despite the novelty of the venture, there is no publicity blitzkreig attached to it. Nor has been any premature announcement characteristic of the state government schemes.

The venture has been necessarily hushed with the early track record of Kerala State Horticultural Development Corporation (Horticorp) falling somewhat short of dazzling. The corporation, which is implementing the project, was formed in 1989 and had been defunct in March 1995-96 with an accumulated loss of Rs 53.6 lakh. For all the corporation's dabbling with promotion of vegetablecultivation, Kerala still produces only 35-40 per cent of the state's requirements. The corporation's rebirth appears to have been under a luckier star than before. Taking a lavish bounty of Rs 20 crore from the state agriculture department, Horticorp had achieved a turnover of Rs 3.2 crore in its first year of operation in 1997-98 after the second coming.

The state government has also allotted land to the corporation in five districts. The operations in the first year were limited to a foothold, Horticorp managing director K Sivaprasad told The Financial Express. The corporation had a nominal presence in the state in the last financial. The corporation's market operations are to gradually extend from Thiruvananthapuram to eight other districts. Horticorp has set up a regional office in Palakkad to speed up the spread of its retailing network to Malabar region. The turnover target for the current fiscal was Rs 20 crore, he said. The state-wide string of cold chains was part of Horticorp's broader scheme torevamp the vegetable retailing in Kerala, Sivaprasad said. It has been visualised as the first link in the corporation's hitech retailing venture of 140 `sasya' supermarkets and 500 `haritha' mini vegetable stalls.

Of these 20 supermarkets and 75 vegetable stalls have already been set up. The Rs 14-crore cold chain scheme consists of nine regional procurement, grading and storage centres (RPCs) in vegetable-producing areas, retail outlets and refrigerated trucks. In the RPCs, depending on the nature and requirement of the vegetables, they are graded, cleaned and treated with mild chemicals. Every RPC is to be supported by a 100 MT cold storage to preserve fruits and vegetables in bulk.

The corporation has about Rs 4-crore fund support from National Horticulture Board (NHB). The cold chain project is also expected to get NHB assistance. Kerala's elaborate move to improve the distribution of farmfresh vegetables is likely to affect the vegetable markets in its neighbouring States. The state buys about 8.5lakh tonnes of vegetables every year from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. This is 65 per cent of the state's requirement. While the wholesale suppliers in the neighbouring states were at present taking about 75 per cent margin through retailing in Kerala, the Horticorp makes 30 per cent margin after allowing 12 per cent profit to the retail-seller.

Sivaprasad said, it was doubtful whether the state would be able to achieve total self-sufficiency in vegetable production immediately. With the sort of astronomic labour costs prevailing in the state, it was difficult to make small scale vegetable production commercially viable, he added.

The Horticorp strategy was to make the best out of a bad situation through the most effective use of a widespread retailing network.