In a bid to tap into the growth potential of the Horticulture sector in Jammu and Kashmir, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Wednesday launched a Market Intervention Scheme to facilitate the stakeholders by providing valuable marketing platform and ensuring optimum prices to the apple growers.
The Market Intervention Scheme will make way for the procurement of 12 lakh metric tonnes of apples, which will not only ensure profitability to the apple growers but will also create rural employment through supplementary services.
"Newly launched MIS is to facilitate the stakeholders by providing valuable marketing platform, besides ensuring optimum prices to the Apple growers avoiding any kind of distress sale," Sinha said while launching the scheme at Raj Bhawan here.
Contrary to the reports on the sale of land to outsiders, Lieutenant Governor assured that not an inch of agricultural land will be sold to anyone.
"The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister has also allowed NAFED (National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India) to utilize government guarantee of Rs 2,500 crore. The losses, if any, to be incurred in this operation will be shared between the Central government and the UT administration on 50-50 basis," Sinha said.
"The government has laid a robust mechsm to provide assistance and necessary handholding to the fruit growers to ensure that they get the effective market place and the right price for their produce," he added.
The Union Cabinet had last week approved the extension of the Market Intervention Scheme for apple procurement in Jammu and Kashmir for 2020-21 on the same terms and the condition as was done in 2019-20.
The procurement of apple will be done by NAFED through the Directorate of Planning and Marketing, Department of Horticulture and Jammu Kashmir Horticulture Processing and Marketing Corporation (JKHPMC), directly from apple farmers, and the payment will be made through Direct Benefit Transfer into the bank accounts of apple farmers.
( With inputs from ANI )
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