Fruits , especially the apples being perishable commodities, need hassles free passage of movement from Kashmir valley to ensure early, prompt and remunerative marketing . Any type of unwarranted stoppages en-route from originating points right up to Mandis could only be termed as avoidable impediments . In fact , the administration must tone up the slew of required facilities to apple growers and traders to transport their fruit consignments to the Mandis across the country. Late October to early December is the peak but limited season during which the entire harvest should reach its respective destinations or else chances of the fruit getting damaged in quality colour and taste and even get perished could result in tremendous pecuniary losses to the traders. Having said so, it looks totally unacceptable that most of the fruit growers and traders should complain and even protest against alleged impending and obstructive measures adopted by some authorities in the smooth passage of fruit laden trucks along Srinagar- Jammu National Highway. Had there been mere allegations and accusations on flimsy grounds from these fruit traders, there would not have been spontaneous protests from scores of traders and growers across 13 major fruit mandis in the Valley. They are within their rights , other things remaining the same, that such unwarranted stoppages and halts accompanied by long waits along the National Highway should be stopped as also the authorities should ensure a smooth and hassles free passage of the concerned trucks carrying the fruit consignments but without compromising on security measures and precautions. While on the one hand, the Central Government is taking measures to provide help and remunerative sale stability to the fruit growers by extending MIS scheme to procure 12 LMT of fruit through DBT and extending other facilities to tide over constraints due to the COVID-19 pandemic , any type of avoidable difficulties should not be caused to be faced by the traders and growers as such uncalled for restrictions were going to offset the gains of the Government procurement and maintaining of stability of prices and pre-empting moves of any distress sale measures. The Fruit cum Dealers Union should find no ground to protest as they are reported to have resorted to, in the Mandis in the valley lamenting about impeded movement of the fruit laden trucks on the Highway which resulted in the goods not reaching the markets in time.In this season of festivals when fruits are in great demand , the traders want to try to touch the gates of Mandis as early as possible to avoid their goods getting impaired in quality and thus avoid incurring losses. Not only this, their complaints are in respect of the local buyers as well as buyers from outside the valley continuing to face hardships due to what they termed as ”inaction of the authorities”. Lot of improvements in ensuring minimum waiting and stoppages at points like Qazigund, Levdara, Jawahar Tunnel and other places are required in the absence of which the fruit trucks are held up even for days together due to which the quality of the fruits gets deteriorated. Since during winter months the valley faces shortage of vegetables and it is alleged that even the incoming trucks laden with vegetables from outside the valley too are unnecessarily stopped at Udhampur . Looking to the fact that COVID -19 pandemic has severely hit almost all trades and business opportunities, every effort should be expended by the Government and its various agencies to help the fruit growers in transporting the consignments of fruit to other Mandis in the country.
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