Pear ripens in Valley, but growers are not amused

Ishfaq Tantry

Tribune News Service

Srinagar/Baramulla, August 20

With the Kashmir region under lockdown for over half-a-month now, fruit growers of Kashmir are staring at huge losses.

The   as the  restrictions and shutdown continue in the regions with most of the  villages across the Valley still not being accessible.

Pear, which is  grown along with apple by orchardists here, is ready for harvest in the  first two weeks of August, but during this time the region has gone into a  vortex of uncertainty and violence following the abrogation of Article  370.

In Srinagar, commission and retail agents have godowns full of  apple boxes, but there are no buyers. “Fruit sellers have suffered huge  losses since the government imposed curfew from August 5. In normal  times during this season, I used to sell around 20 boxes per day, but  due to this lockdown and curfew, I have suffered huge losses,” said  Mudasir Ahmad Gojri, a retail and forwarding agent at Batamaloo,  Srinagar.

He said as he could not open his shop for almost a week due  to restrictions in the area, around 20 boxes of pear perished inside  his shop.

During normal seasons, a box of pear would fetch the grower  between Rs 600 and Rs 800 in the local wholesale fruit mandis at  Parimpora in Srinagar and Sopore in north Kashmir, but due the turmoil  in the region, the growers are bearing huge losses, with a pair of box  fetching only between Rs 200 and Rs 300.

“Mandis at Sopore and  Parimpora are closed due to the shutdown. The demand has almost dipped.  The rest of the country is in dire situation as most of the states are  facing floods which has also affected the demand-supply chain as far as  Kashmir fruit is concerned,” said Shahid Ahmad Lone, a fruit grower and  commission agent from Baramulla.

He added that due to the prevailing  uncertainty, most of the pear crop has gone either waste or the growers  have preferred not to harvest it due to low price in mandis.This is a setback for the growers.