New Delhi: Leading post-harvest management company, National Commodities Management Services Limited (NCML) opened its public Silo storage facility at Sonipat in Haryana on Thursday.
The four flat-bottom Silos have been built with an investment of INR 800 mn and with a storage capacity of 12,500 MT each and are situated at Mohana, Sonipat, and Haryana. It includes a flat bottom silo of 4000 MT capacity, two Hopper bottom silos with a capacity of 30 MT each, a 60 MT Silo, and a 500 MT Hopper Bottom Silo.
These are major grain storage silos and can store at least 50,000 MT of wheat grain at a point. Each of these long-term storage silos is built-in with stationary and mechanical ventilators, aeration fans and sweep augurs, and a temperature monitoring system. This Modern Silo storage is having auto functions, which can be operated during COVID-19 pandemic restrictions with minimum manual interventions.
The company’s Managing Director & CEO Siraj Chaudhry said, “Post-harvest losses in agricultural commodities range from 4 percent to 10 percent for cereals, pulses, and oilseeds, of which nearly 50 percent is on account of improper storage and preservation. We at NCML, address this particular aspect by adopting scientific storage techniques for storage and preservation. Storage in Silos is one of the prominent practices worldwide, and NCML is the first company in India to offer Silos for the storage of commodities for private players.”
The intake capacity of the conveying system attached to each of the long-term Storage Silos is around 150 tons per hour (TPH) and discharges of the silos including discharge by sweep auger at a minimum of 60 TPH.
The Silos with different storage capacities have a variety of uses such as 4000 MT silo is mainly used for buffer storage and for feeding Wagon Loading Tower, 30 MT Silos or Day Bin Silos are used for bagging the stored grain, 60 MT Silo is used for truck loading and 500 MT Silo receives the grain from the Intake Hoppers which are the first contact point from where the grain is received from the trucks.
During the intake process, the incoming grains from intake hoppers are fed to 500 MT Silos and subsequently made to pass through a drum sieve, pre-cleaner, and weighed before they are finally fed to Flat Bottom Silos or 4000 MT Silo.
NCML President Unupom Kausik said, “Designed in line with the global best practices, our modern storage silo complex is equipped with great amenities for efficient food preservation and provides a huge amount of storage capacity with a variety of other processes. The major population of the local Haryana community is involved in grain cultivation. With this project, we are hopeful that local growers will have amplified market access and will get more prospects to sell their products, making them more gainful in the long run”.
Apart from Silos, the facility also comprises a truck parking area, quality laboratory, intake pit shed including intake pits which house the intake hoppers, process tower which comprises of drum sieve, pre-cleaner, online weigher and related elevators and conveyors.
NCML is building 13 modern storage Silo complexes for Rs 9,600 Mn in Bihar, Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh in collaboration with the Food Corporation of India.
