National Conference senior leader and Member of Parliament from Baramulla, Muhammad Akbar Lone on Saturday expressed dismay over closure of sub-sale centers of department of Agriculture at different locations in Kashmir, saying the move will cause inconvenience to the farmers and affect the annual produce.
While expressing dismayover the impulsive measure of closing down the designated plantprotection/sub-sale centers/seasonal seed outlets, Lone said, these centerswere established during the National Conference-led government to ensure thatfarmers living in rural and hilly areas get easy access to fertilizers,pesticides and other wide ranging commodities indispensable to agriculture andhorticulture activity.
“The idea behind themeasure was to ensure availability of all essential agricultural prerequisitesto farmers, who previously had to travel to nearest towns or Srinagar city tobuy seeds, pesticides and other wide ranging commodities. Such multipurposecenters in the rural areas used to help the farmers in cutting farming inputcosts and it also had a positive impact on the annual yield,” Lone said.
He said setting up of thecenters was part of concerted efforts towards making all the agriculturerelated schemes available at the doorsteps of farmers as well as making thevillages self reliant.
“Theaction taken by the agriculture department by closing the centers isinappropriate and callous,” Lone said while seeking immediate roll back of theorder.
He said the authoritieswere blind to the issues faced by the farmers in remote areas. “Moreovermulti-utility sub-sale centers like these could have been effectively used bythe government to reach out to farmers to ensure that they don’t have toundergo trepidation in view of prevailing lockdown following COVID19 crises,”Lone said.