Poor maintenance of Fruit Mandi Shopian discourages buyers to visit facility

Shopian: While the apple growers and traders are grappling with losses due to plummeting prices of the fruit, poor maintenance of the Fruit Mandi Shopian is adding to their miseries by discouraging the outstation byers to visit the facility.

The unclean toilets, heaps of garbage laying around the facility and poor lighting system put both the local and outstation traders and growers to nconveniences.

   

“A rancid odour is emanating from the muck strewn around the Mandi round the clock”, said Mohamamd Amin Peer, President Fruit Mandi Shopian. Peer said that unclean toilets and poor lighting system were dissuading the traders from other parts of the country to visit the Mandi.

Peer said they had to press generators into service in absence of proper electricity facilities.

The Fruit Mandi Shopian is the third largest Mandi in the country, sprawling over 393 kanal, and provides livelihood to nearly 10 thousand people in the area. The annual turnover of the market is Rs 4000 crore.

The Mandi was shifted to Aglar village from Arhama area in 2020, given the lack of adequate space.

However, the J & K Horticulture Planning and Marketing department responsible for maintaining the facility has neglected to do so.

Mushtaq Ahamd Lone, Area Marketing Officer, Planning and Marketing told Greater Kashmir that the Mandi was to be completed in 4 stages and presently only 2 stages are completed.

“We relocated it in emergency as the old location was resulting in pesky traffic snarls due to the stream of fruit laden trucks entering and existing the Mandi during the harvesting season”, Lone said.

He said that the issue would be resolved once all the stages were completed.

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