| Introduction : The Cold rooms project aims to address the high rates of difficult conditions experienced by street vendors, including exposure to extreme weather, multiple drivers of cost that reduce the viability of low-volume production as well as a marketplace void of clear market signals. These vendors struggle to make informed decisions on how to produce and sell, resulting in high volumes of food wastage or distressed selling, significantly impacting on the stability and viability of their livelihoods. In order to improve economic (and other) outcomes for Rourkela’s farmers, it is critically important to provide these vendors with both the infrastructure and market conditions needed to help drive down drivers of cost, improve stability in pricing, and drive increased volume of production. Led by the Rourkela Municipal Corporation in cooperation with UNDP, the Rourkela Cold room project will deliver an integrated model with both technological and economic innovation that seeks to build these required conditions for vendors (and other people reliant on the market) by: - Building cold-storage units in outdoor marketplaces, providing farmers with short-term solutions to address the weather conditions and respond to high volume harvests that have no storage space to be conserved harvest;
- Creating a link between farmers and the market of buyers, providing increased stability in sale price and volume capacity;
- Building capability of women’s self-help groups (SHGs) to operate these cold rooms, and as a consequence, build stable income for vulnerable women and their families.
UNDP is seeking a company to supply four (4) electric rickshaws for the Rourkela Cold rooms project, as per the specifications provided. These electric vehicles will be used to deliver fresh produce from farmers/ vendors to bulk institution and to home deliver the produce to customers. |
