DNA Edit: Kashmir CBM - Govt procurement of apples is timely and needed

Apple, one of the main crops in the Kashmir Valley, is close to peoples’ hearts there. The state produces 17.9 lakh tonnes of apple — 75% of the total production in the country — also making it one of the mainstays of the region’s economy.

In many ways, therefore, the prosperity of people is closely linked to the successful production and export of the apple crop. This year, security restrictions and absence of communication links have hit Kashmir’s multi-crore apple business.

The movement of fruit trucks to the Valley has reduced from 1,200 to barely 120 a day. Designated apple markets in Shopian, Sopore, Parimpora (Srinagar) and Batengo (Anantnag) have been closed. Buyers from outside the state have avoided visiting the Valley, as they do every year, prompting fears that prices may crash and worse, the ripe harvest may rot.

Kashmir’s new cold storages can accommodate, at best, around 10% of the total produce. Buyers from Delhi’s Azadpur Mandi, for instance, avoided advance contracts for the standing crop, putting the burden of ferrying the cases on the orchard owners.

The apple season starts in the second week of August and peaks in September-October. The flow of trucks declines only by December 15. Annually, truckers from Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Rajasthan ferry apple outside the Valley. Under the circumstances, as part of its ongoing confidence-building measures (CBM) outreach, the Narendra Modi government has decided to procure apples cultivated in Jammu and Kashmir through direct market intervention to enable cultivators get a better price for their produce under the direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme.

The scheme is slated to enhance apple growers’ income in the Valley by about Rs 2,000 crore annually.  The announcement comes in the wake of terrorists threatening orchard owners not to sell their produce in the market to protest the abrogation of the special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370.

Last week, four people of an apple-grower’s family, including a two-year-old girl, were fired at and injured by extremists in Sopore for defying their diktat. The move comes at the back of a crucial meeting held last week between fruit growers, village chiefs and agricultural marketers with Union home minister Amit Shah.

The delegation had raised the issue of not getting the right rate for their produce and suffering losses due to transport restrictions in the Valley on account of the security clampdown. As per the new arrangement, apples will to be procured from growers/ aggregators at fruit mandis.

Around 12 lakh metric tonnes of apple will be procured under the Special Market Intervention Price Scheme. According to a notification, NAFED has been tasked to complete the entire process of procurement through designated government agencies by December 15. This is a step that will go a long way in restoring normalcy in the Kashmir Valley.

From India’s standpoint, winning the hearts and minds of Kashmiris is important to restore a degree of normalcy in the Valley. It makes New Delhi’s case for abrogation of Article 370, the strongest.