17 months on, state’s lone flower mandi a non-starter

Ambika Sharma

Solan, May 18

Seventeen months after it was inaugurated, the Parwanoo-based state’s first Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee’s (APMC) flower mandi has been a non-starter.

Following this, the APMC had served notices on the allottees of all 10 shops to vacate the premises as they neither paid the rent ranging from Rs 7,000 to Rs 11,000 per month, nor did they sell any flowers ever since it was started in January 2021.

Ravinder Sharma, secretary, APMC, Solan, said after multiple notices to the allottees, seven of the 10 shops were vacated on Tuesday. “The remaining three were closed and will be vacated soon. Fresh allotments will be made soon to bring genuine traders,” Sharma added.

He said the traders preferred to sell flowers at the Ghazipur mandi in Delhi, where they earned a 10 to 12 per cent commission from the growers. The APMC here charged 6 per cent commission from the growers.

Sharma said various facilities like washrooms, water coolers and three-phase power transformer, etc were created on the demand of the allottees but despite this, they did not initiate any sale of flowers. They were served as many as five notices in the past several months to initiate sales.

Kuldeep, a flower grower from Mahog village in Chail, said, “Since flowers have a short shelf life, they have to be sent to the markets at the earliest. Flowers sold at Parwanoo have to be resent to the Ghazipur mandi in Delhi, which was time-consuming as an additional step was created. Owing to this obstacle, traders were hesitant to opt for Parwanoo. As per the prevailing practice, the growers sell the flowers directly at Ghazipur and manage to get the best price.”

Absence of ACs at Parwanoo to store the produce was also seen as another obstacle.