Dismantling of Rs 2 crore worth Cold Storage begins
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, July 10 2013: The destruction process of the Cold Storage of Agriculture Department at Mantripukhri, which had been constructed by investing more than 2 crores of rupees, has begun to give space for setting up a new Civil Secretariat complex.

According to a highly placed source, the construction of the Cold Storage building was started in 1995-96 with an amount of Rs 1.42 crores sanctioned from the State Plan.

It was then left unattended for quite some time.

It was only during the time of W Nipamacha as the Chief Minister of Manipur that the construction work on the Cold Storage was completed and finally handed over to the farmers of Manipur in 2001 .

But as there was acute shortage of power supply in the State during that time, the then Agriculture Minister Salam Rajen procured a diesel generator worth lakhs of rupees from Mizoram and took up necessary measures for ensuring uninterrupted power supply to the Cold Storage.

Dismantling of Rs 2 crore worth Cold Storage begins

However, in addition to shortage of power, as the lone generator could not provide uninterrupted power supply for 24 hours to run the machines of the Cold Storage, it was ultimately closed down six months after its inauguration.

After the expiry of the term of the then Agriculture Minister Salam Rajen, a number of governments have come and sanctioned certain amount of money towards repairing of the Cold Storage, but it remained defunct.

Since there was no official to look after the Cold Storage and no maintenance had been ever done properly, a number of machines worth lakhs of rupees became rusted and non-operational.

As such, a huge amount of rupees was required to make the Cold Storage functional again.

But since the State Government of that time was facing financial crisis, no investment could be made to make it functional and hence, it became useless, the source said.

One of the most disheartening facts about the present fate of the Cold Storage is the missing of the diesel generator that had been procured investing lakhs of rupees.

Today, no documents related to the purchase of the missing diesel generator could be traced, the source revealed.

It further informed that destruction process of the Cold Storage building has now been started for construction of a new Civil Secretariat complex in its place.

But the main concern that has risen in the ongoing destruction process is that the defunct Cold Storage is still filled with cylinders of ammonia gas.

If these gas cylinders are not properly taken out, the ammonia gas could get leak, thereby emitting poisonous gas harmful to human beings and animals.

On top of this, there is the high chance of the gas cylinders exploding like powerful bomb in case of mishandling them.

In such an event, human casualty to be caused would be disastrous, the source noted.

However, the source revealed that experts from outside the State would be called for proper disposal of the ammonia gas-filled cylinders which were supposed to be used as cooling agent to keep the now dismantled Cold Storage at a certain temperature around the clock.