NEW DELHI: Indian dairy marvel Amul and online grocer Big Basket are among the companies that have got the federal approval to set up 101 integrated cold-chain projects, signaling big investments in a sector considered crucial to reducing farm output losses in Asia’s third-biggest economy.These projects, allocated by the Food Processing ministry, would help in the storage of perishable produce such as fruits and vegetables, dairy, fish, meat, marine, poultry, and the ready-to-eat products. The cold chains, to be set up across the country, would streamline the agricultural supply chain, and create huge employment opportunities for surplus farm hands.“These 101 new integrated cold chain projects will leverage total investment of Rs 3,100 crore for creation of modern infrastructure for the food processing sector. The total expected grant-in-aid to be released to these projects is Rs 838 crore,” Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the Minister for Food Processing, told the media.Among other big names winning such projects is the Haldiram Group that makes ready-to-eat Indian snack-foods. The new projects will create additional capacity of 2.76 lakh tonnes of cold storages, including controlled atmosphere and frozen storage, 115 tonnes per hour of individual quick freezing (IQF) capacity, 56 lakh litres per day of milk processing, 210 tonnes per batch of blast freezing, and 629 refrigerated and insulated vehicles, she said.“India is one of the largest food producers in the world and is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables, yet only 2.2% of our fruits and vegetables are processed. While existing cold storages are concentrated in a few states and roughly 80 to 90% are used for potatoes, India has a long way to go,” said Badal.The minister added that the cold chains will help provide better prices to farmers. “The infrastructure will also reduce the wastage of perishables, add value to the agricultural produce, and create huge employment opportunities especially in rural areas,” she said.The ministry is focusing on building a national cold chain grid in the country so that all food producing hubs are connected to cold storages and processing industries. The cold-chain and value-addition infrastructure programme provides financial assistance of up to Rs 10 crore to entrepreneurs.