Srinagar: Promising to acquire 25 lakh metric tons (MT) of apple from the farmers of Kashmir, the central government run National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. (NAFED) has procured only 15601.50 MTs of apple from the farmers of Kashmir during the past two years.
“Instead of reassuring the farmers, the scheme has hung them round. Their payments were withheld for prolonged periods of time,” sources say.
“The procurement exercise has ended up as a money losing venture. Rs 40 crores have been lost under the scheme impaired by bureaucratic intricacies and wild corruption,” they added.
Jammu and Kashmir is supposed to bear Rs 20 crore as its share of the loss. An agreement had been reached by the Union Territory administration and the NAFED in 2019 to share the losses, if any, on an equal basis.
“Inordinate delay in procurement, an interlock of unnecessary official rules, processes, corruption and lack of will on part of the procurement agency impaired the scheme,” said president of Kashmir Valley Fruit Growers Dealer’s Association, Bashir Ahmad Bashir.
The Government of India (GoI) had launched the much spotlighted Market Intervention Scheme (MIS) in the last week of September 2019. It aimed to provide a market solution to apple growers of Kashmir who were unable to sell their produce due to curfew and communication blockade after the autonomous stature of Jammu and Kashmir was ended and it was reorganized into two centrally administrative Union territories.
Official statistics reveal that only 0.62 percent of the target set by the national cooperative of farmers was achieved in two years, leaving the local apple growers to fend with the trials of marketing in a hostile situation.
The GoI had announced procurement of 13 lakh MT of apples produced in Jammu and Kashmir after the roll out of MIS through NAFED in 2019. The national agricultural cooperative was supposed to complete the entire process of procurement through designated state government agencies by December 15. But only 15600 MTs, (1.2 percent of the set target) were procured by it during the season.
The scheme was extended for 2020-21 and 12 lakh MT’s was set to be procured by NAFED during the period. However, one-and-a-half metric tons of apple were purchased during the season. The actual procurement of apple by the NAFED began on 11th November from Arhama (Shopian), when most of the harvesting time of the year had passed.
Cumulatively 0.62 percent of the set target was achieved during the past two years, confirmed Manzoor Ahmad Dar, Deputy Director Horticulture. The scheme has been wound up and there is no chance of its application this year, he added.
Kashmir annually produces 22 lakh metric tons of different varieties of apple and seven lakh families are directly associated with its cultivation.
According to the GoI announced scheme, the procurement of apples was to be made directly from genuine apple growers of Kashmir. The payment was to be made under direct benefit transfer mechanism to avoid leakages.
All categories of apples — A, B and C — were to be procured from five centers established across Kashmir. The operation for procurement from the growers was carried out in coordination with the Directorate of Planning and Marketing, Department of Horticulture and Jammu and Kashmir, Horticulture Produce Marketing and Processing Corporation Ltd. (JKHPMC).
Manzoor Amad Dar, the senior officer at Horticulture Department said that MIS through NFED was an attempt to provide an alternate buyer to the farmers. “The question is not that of the losses but the reprieve the scheme provided to the farmers in times of need,” he said.
