Srinagar, Jan 10: Here is some good news for the Valley fruit dealers. The Chowdhary Cold Store has launched a state-of-the-art banana ripening store, first in the Valley, at Industrial Estate Zainakote, here.
To facilitate the fruit dealers to have marketable bananas on demand, the store shall be turning the raw-bananas into ripe-fruit through a natural process.
“Our store has modern and standard banana ripening chambers, wherein ripening of the fruit can be carried out naturally with humidity, temperatures and atmosphere under controlled conditions,” said Shahid Chowdhary of Chowdhary Cold Store.
 “The purpose behind launching this store is to facilitate the fruit traders and growers of the Valley to get the marketable fruit on demand,” he added.
The facility is believed to help reduce the role of middlemen who often exploit the traders importing bananas from different parts of India.
“The facility would enable the Valley traders to import raw fruit from the farms of Gujarat and from other parts of India as and when they like, for they don’t have to bother about the ripening of the fruit,” he said, adding that it would eliminate the middleman in Delhi.
Chowdhary said: “The traders can also save some portion of freight which ultimately shall pass on to the consumers,” he said.
Chowdhary said the plant is fully equipped to store fresh fruits and vegetables for both short and long durations at temperatures ranging between -3 and 20 degree C and high humidity control, “which is necessary for preservation and freshness of fruits and vegetables.”
He said ripening of banana was carried out by natural ethylene produced by the fruit to set the ripening process.
“The calculated dose of ethylene is sprayed inside the closed chambers, where temperature and humidity conditions are already maintained,” he said, adding that the fruit inside the sealed chambers then started the natural ripening process with the help of high axial flow blowers. 
 “The fruits so ripened are considered safe for human consumption and their colour and taste are up to the international standards,” he said.
He said nearly 10 trucks of bananas currently flow daily into the Parimpora fruit market that are partially ripened at Delhi-based cold stores.
“With the new technology, our cold store can produce four to five truckloads of bananas daily,” he said.
He said the fruit traders in the Valley were highly dependent upon the highway. “During winter season banana cannot be ripened in Srinagar. Then during extreme weather conditions, banana being a delicate fruit is normally spoiled when the Srinagar-Jammu highway is blocked, thus causing huge losses to the fruit traders,” Chowdhary said.
He said the banana ripening that is carried out at commercial scale with the help of carbide has been banned by the government of India “due to its unsafe and unhealthy characteristics.” “Therefore, the latest banana ripening technology can prove to be a good option,” he said.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 10 Jan 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:00 IST