Government tried its best to remove the bottlenecks in the fruit industry by way of enacting the Agriculture Produce Marketing Regulation Act of 1997 and APMC rules of 2003. But due to lack of manpower in the satellite fruit markets, the desired results were not achieved. The Act is toothless unless the executing agencies are not fully prepared to enact it in their jurisdiction with proper planning and manpower. The Department of Horticulture (Planning & Marketing) was entrusted the job to develop the mandies and after proper establishment and development hand over them to different marketing committees of respective terminal markets. The mandies were developed at Narwal Jammu, Parimpora, Sopore, Shopian, Pulwama, Kulgam, Baramulla,Udhampure,Charar-e-sharief, Handwara, Kupwara, Kathua, Akhnoor, Bishnah and Rajouri (GK 21/7/2011) and are now functional. But they are without proper infrastructure and manpower. In the light of the act Chief Executive Officers were deputed from the department for the terminal markets for two year tenure in addition to their own duties. But it didn’t work because of the paucity of staff. The establishment of mandies had a very broad based strategy to streamline the fruit industry and to provide the growers a platform to sell their crop at reasonable rates. In case the State Govt is really interested to boost the fruit industry, these mandies need to be equipped well with proper manpower and standard infrastructure.

Khan Mukhtar
maribmariya@gmail.com

Lastupdate on : Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 29 Jul 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 30 Jul 2011 00:00:00 IST