As markets, industries, and services crashed down by this pandemic, world over states, institutions, and business establishments are trying hard to keep things afloat. There is a consistent pressure, that is only growing, on governments that pathways to business need to be somehow re-opened. What will happen as a process of back and forth movement on this matter will be known soon, but there are certain things that strike at this moment. One such issues is that the diffused form of businesses that involve a huge number of people at ground level, and is time bound cannot wait in this condition. In Kashmir we could see it from the beginning. As the lockdown was first announced in March it was quite severe. But even then the supply of milk through traditional ways and channels was allowed. This is a significant portion of our family level economy. Similarly vegetables would be home delivered, and this also kept many families economically healthy. There is another area that contributes to our economy in a big way – orchids. We saw last month, when Ramadhan began, apples were home delivered by many vendors, and this helped in a significant way. Now the case is of the fruit that is ripe and needs to reach market.
This time it is cherry. The government must, now that it is contemplating of relaxing restrictions, make arrangement for such things to reach markets and the end consumer. Since all producers cannot avail the luxury of cold storages, their yield would perish if it doesn’t sell in time. In fact there should be a special arrangement in place to ensure that a produce that has less shelf life is consumed quickly. For this the markets, and the conduits leading to them, should always be a focus. Each time we have some crisis, in terms of road closure or some disturbances within, these issue come to fore. The fruit growers and sellers then run from post to pillar, meeting one official after another. It is better that we have alternative plans up and ready, and as the situation, climatic or otherwise, so the plan.