Apple growers of Kashmir laud Centres Market Intervention Scheme expect profit

In a bid to tap into the growth potential of the Horticulture sector in Jammu and Kashmir, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha launched a Market Intervention Scheme to facilitate the stakeholders by providing valuable marketing platform and ensuring optimum prices to the apple growers. The Market Intervention Scheme will make way for the procurement of 12 lakh metric tonnes of apples, which will not only ensure profitability to the apple growers but will also create rural employment through supplementary services. The Union Cabinet had last week approved the extension of the Market Intervention Scheme for apple procurement in Jammu and Kashmir for 2020-21 on the same terms and the condition as was done in 2019-20. The procurement of apple will be done by NAFED through the Directorate of Planning and Marketing, Department of Horticulture and Jammu Kashmir Horticulture Processing and Marketing Corporation (JKHPMC), directly from apple farmers, and the payment will be made through Direct Benefit Transfer into the bank accounts of apple farmers.