Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti today directed vigorous penetration of High Density Apple orchard scheme in the North Kashmir areas, revival of all the fruit processing units of the Government and developing cold stores near the fruit mandies for better off take of horticulture produce.
The Chief Minister asked all the concerned agencies to work in unison for sorting out these issues so that the industry which, she said, is a major contributor to local economy gets a further push and the growers feel motivated to continue with the practice.
Mehbooba Mufti said this in a high level meeting of all the concerned agencies which she chaired immediately after her return back from her public outreach programme at Baramulla. During the said public outreach programme yesterday a number of fruit growers and traders had met the Chief Minister and complained of many issues coming in their way.
Mehbooba Mufti directed the SKUAST-K Vice Chancellor to depute a team of experts to visit the High Density apple plants for quarantine checks within a week and come up with the statutory report. She asked the Chairman J&K Bank to further enhance credit lending facility to apple growers for broad basing the horticulture industry.
The Chief Minister explicitly directed that there should be no delay in the disbursement of subsidy to the orchardists in respect of the horticulture promotion schemes.
Secretary, Horticulture, Manzoor Ahmad Lone; Chairman, J&K Bank, Parvez Ahmad; Vice Chancellor, SKUAST-K, Prof. Nazeer Ahmad; Director, Horticulture, M H Mir; Director, HPMC, Manzoor Ahmad Qadri; progressive growers and fruit traders and other senior officers were present in the meeting.