A first: Kashmir gets model apple village

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 9

Khiram-Sirhama of south Kashmir’s Anantnag district became the state’s first model apple village, a government spokesman said on Saturday.

Minister for Revenue, Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Abdul Rehman Veeri inaugurated the first model apple village at a function attended by District Development Commissioner, Anantnag, Muhammad Younis Malik; Director, Horticulture, Kashmir, Mathora Masoom; Deputy Director Horticulture Mohammad Yousuf Dar and other senior officers.

“The major components of the model apple village include a shift from traditional to high-density apple plantation, digging of borewells, construction of sheds in orchards, rejuvenation of old and saline orchards with new varieties, providing farm machines like tractors, weeders and sprayers, setting up of juice preservation plant, grading and packing training to farmers, etc,” the spokesman said.

Speaking on the occasion, the minister urged the fruit growers to shift to high-density practices to enhance apple production for greater economic returns in the field, the spokesman added.

“It will change the economic profile of Kashmir,” Veeri said. He also asked the officers to send orchardists of the area on foreign tours where they could witness prospects of high-density apple orchards and use those better prospects here in the Kashmir valley.

Khiram-Sirhama has been set up as the model apple village on a “pilot basis” and will initially cover 80 kanals in the village at a cost of Rs 5 crore. Deputy Director, Horticulture, Kashmir, Mohammad Yousuf Dar said the project would be replicated in all apple producing areas in future.