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Ishfaq Tantry
Tribune News Service
Srinagar/Baramulla, August 20
With the Kashmir region under lockdown for over half-a-month now, fruit growers of Kashmir are staring at huge losses.
The as the restrictions and shutdown continue in the regions with most of the villages across the Valley still not being accessible.
Pear, which is grown along with apple by orchardists here, is ready for harvest in the first two weeks of August, but during this time the region has gone into a vortex of uncertainty and violence following the abrogation of Article 370.
In Srinagar, commission and retail agents have godowns full of apple boxes, but there are no buyers. “Fruit sellers have suffered huge losses since the government imposed curfew from August 5. In normal times during this season, I used to sell around 20 boxes per day, but due to this lockdown and curfew, I have suffered huge losses,” said Mudasir Ahmad Gojri, a retail and forwarding agent at Batamaloo, Srinagar.
He said as he could not open his shop for almost a week due to restrictions in the area, around 20 boxes of pear perished inside his shop.
During normal seasons, a box of pear would fetch the grower between Rs 600 and Rs 800 in the local wholesale fruit mandis at Parimpora in Srinagar and Sopore in north Kashmir, but due the turmoil in the region, the growers are bearing huge losses, with a pair of box fetching only between Rs 200 and Rs 300.
“Mandis at Sopore and Parimpora are closed due to the shutdown. The demand has almost dipped. The rest of the country is in dire situation as most of the states are facing floods which has also affected the demand-supply chain as far as Kashmir fruit is concerned,” said Shahid Ahmad Lone, a fruit grower and commission agent from Baramulla.
He added that due to the prevailing uncertainty, most of the pear crop has gone either waste or the growers have preferred not to harvest it due to low price in mandis.This is a setback for the growers.
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