Fatehpur grain market yard finds few takers

High-monthly rent fails to attract entrepreneurs

Rajiv Mahajan

Nurpur, July 9

The regulated vegetable and grain marketing yard, built by the state Agriculture Department in Fatehpur by the Virbhadra government, has become a white elephant as almost all shops have been lying vacant for the past two years. The government had spent Rs 387 lakh on the yard, which seems to have gone down the drain.

Shops and godowns, built in the yard, have failed to attract the unemployed youth. The high monthly rent and lack of facilities have kept the entrepreneurs away from this yard. The yard was inaugurated by then Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh on January 14, 2017. The present government has failed to take any steps to make it operational. Initially, the yard had become functional in September 2017, when all shops were rented out. However, due to high monthly rent, all lessees left these.

The yard has eight vegetable shops to run the wholesale sabzi mandi and 10 godowns of the grain market. Only two vegetable shops with Rs 2,500 monthly rent and two grain market godowns have been leased out at Rs 10,000 per month. Most of the shops and godowns are locked for want of lessees.

Vegetable growers of the area prefer to sell their produce door-to-door after 1 per cent market committee fee for selling vegetables and fruits outside sabzi mandis was exempted in 2014.

The Agriculture Department, which has to run this yard through the State Agriculture Marketing Board (SAMB), has failed to provide any facility in the yard to attract entrepreneurs. Jeet Sharma, president, Fatehpur block Congress, criticised the state for neglecting the pro-farmer project and demanded to take the steps to make it functional.

Raj Kumar Bhardwaj, secretary, Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC), Kangra, said a proposal for reducing the rent of the shops and providing the cold storage facility in the yard had been submitted to the SAMB.

Sanjay Upadhaya, the lone director of the SAMB from Kangra, said he had raised a proposal to reduce the monthly rent during the meeting of the SAMB for making it functional.