Defunct offices were incurring losses worth crores
Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, July 25: In a significant decision, the Government of Jammu and Kashmir has closed nine Area Marketing Offices of the Horticulture Department, which were located in various parts of the country and had been virtually defunct but incurring losses worth crores of rupees to the public exchequer.
As part of the administrative reforms, these Area Marketing Offices at Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Amritsar, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Patna, Lucknow and Chennai have been relocated to various parts of Jammu and Kashmir.
Along with all sanctioned posts, three of these offices are being relocated to three districts of Jammu division and remaining six to various districts of Kashmir division.
According to a Government order in this regard, Area Marketing Office at Ahmedabad is being relocated to Kathua, Chandigarh office to Ramban, Jaipur to Kishtwar, Amritsar to Pulwama, Bhopal to Budgam, Hyderabad to Baramulla, Patna to Bandipora, Lucknow to Ganderbal and Chennai to Shopian.
These Area Marketing Offices under the Directorate of Horticulture Department (Planning & Marketing), J&K Government, were established in early seventies, around five decades ago with an objective to promote cooperative and local marketing of the fruits and vegetables from J&K to other parts of the country.
Improving marketing connectivity within and outside the J&K, quick dissemination of market intelligence among growers, , facilitating of fruit supplies directly from Mandis to potential domestic markets and exports to other countries like Bangladesh and Nepal, providing a platform for the grower to sell their products in the potential areas to avoid exploitation of middlemen, development of market infrastructure in the form of mandis, cold storage, grading and packing line, cold chain and processing industries, etc were the main objectives of these Area Marketing Offices through well-trained and dedicated officers.
However, despite spending crores of rupees on infrastructure, these Marketing Offices failed to provide a platform to the growers to sell their products in the potential area and serve the purpose. Only 15 percent of the lower rung staff had been working in these offices and 85 percent posts were lying vacant while rent of hired buildings for the purpose had created a liability of more than Rs two crores on the Horticulture Department, sources informed.
Official sources told the Excelsior that the Government has recently initiated marketing of horticulture products through Electronic Marketing platforms (eNAM) in the mandis of Jammu and Kashmir facilitating online trade of fruit and other products and hence there was no need of these Area Marketing Offices in other parts of the country.
Pertinent to mention that horticulture sector plays an important role in any region and contributes significantly to the region’s economy. In Jammu and Kashmir, horticulture is a source of livelihood for 33 lakh population. About seven lakh families are directly or indirectly involved and depend on the horticulture sector, which also provided job to other related trades such as fertilizers, pesticides, agriculture machinery, traders and processing of fruits etc.
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