Union Minister for Agriculture, Mr Sharad Pawar has called upon the cooperative institutions to contribute to creation of storage and cold storage capacity in the country. Addressing the 72nd Meeting of General Council of National Cooperative Development Corporation -NCDC, Mr Pawar said that cooperatives have a distinct role in post-harvest management. According to an official release, he said that NCDC sanctioned assistance for creation of 3.70 lakh tonnes of storage space in 2010-11 and 3.94 lakh tonnes in 2011-12 including renovation of existing godowns. He said that development of cold chains will be one of the thrust areas of NCDC.