The news story by Muddasir Ali (GK 10th July) needs to be commented over for its being a partial reality.  It carries truth and falsehood in equal measure.
True in the sense that government erred in appointing non technical officials as Director Horticulture department and Director horticulture planning and marketing department. It is false in the sense that bad shape of fruit industry is also due to the casual approach of the basic fruit growers of the state.
The department of horticulture planning and marketing was established with the basic aim of providing soft loans to the growers on the bases of their produce. The growers later on showed laxity in the repayment of their loan amounts and thereby defeating the essence of whole issue and therefore the industry got a setback.
While releasing the amounts to the growers it used to pay back the loan amount to the government after the sale proceeds were received by the growers but at times the loan amount got invested somewhere else without visiting the government chests.
Now when we look into the reasons which made the department redundant, we come across many unplanned initiative by the government which include vacant posts and unspent funds which if attended in time would have made a difference.
The department of horticulture planning and marketing which has all along been manned by the non technical officers time and again has ruined the fruit industry in Kashmir as we can hardly feel the pulse of growers unless and until we belong to the field we are heading.
It is not just the vacancies of area marketing officers outside and within the state but in district Anantnag the four zones of  the district are without any Assistant grading and marketing officers from the last so many months and department is sleeping on the issue.
The four important zones in the district Anantnag and Kulgam are directly affecting the healthy working of the department because the growers in Anantnag, Dachnipora, Qazigund and Kulgam get failed to receive any technical know how because all the four posts are vacant and they have to fend for themselves.
The height of the affair in the whole issue is that senior most inspectors of the department who have invested more than 30 years in the department have yet to get any promotions and government once again feels is easy to keep the posts vacant and deprive the officials to hold the vacant posts of assistant grading and marketing officers as per the laid down rules.
The problem as well said by the learned correspondent of this paper does not end here because Rs 400 crore technology mission for horticulture in J&K is going nowhere and there seems no progress in its implementation and much of the funds are lying unspent.
The basic facilities in the mandies within the state are below the line of standardization of marketing act and lot of mandies instead of providing any solace in solving the problems have become real reason in creating the problems for the growers within the state.
The government needs to revisit the marketing manuals and take remedial measures and save the sagging fruit industry of the state before it is too late.

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Lastupdate on : Fri, 20 Jul 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 20 Jul 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 21 Jul 2012 00:00:00 IST