The Jammu and Kashmir government on Monday pegged the losses caused by the flood to agriculture and allied sectors at Rs 209 crore, and said a report would be sent to the Centre with a request for relief.
“Agriculture and allied sectors have suffered losses of Rs 209 crore. We have sent this assessment to the Centre, and we are hopeful that we will get something,” said Agriculture Minister Javed Dar in the state assembly, responding to a question by PDP MLA from Pulwama, Waheed Para.
Para demanded that the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) loans of farmers be waived as they had suffered losses due to the inclement weather and the closure of the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway in August.
“It will be a burden of Rs 600 crore. I hope the chief minister will consider this,” the PDP MLA said.
The agriculture minister, however, said the amount of Rs 600 crore was a “myth” as the agriculture and allied sectors had only faced the losses of Rs 209 crore.
“There is a myth here. If there is a Rs 100 crore loss, it becomes Rs 1,000 crore. There is a total of 209 crore total losses in agriculture and allied sectors,” he added.
Dar said 23 lakh metric tonnes of fruit is produced in the Kashmir valley alone, and 1.75 lakh metric tonnes of it had already been sent before the highway closure, and 22,000 metric tonnes of it was stuck on the highway.
On Para’s starred question on crop insurance not being granted to apple growers, the government said the tendering process for the selection of the insurance company was on.
“Under Re-structured Weather Based Crop lnsurance scheme (RWBCIS) — apple, saffron, mango and litchi crops have been notified to provide cover. The tendering process for selection of insurance company (out of the empanelled insurance companies notified by the GoI) to provide insurance cover to these horticulture crops is in process,” the minister said in a written reply.
On cold storage facilities, the minister said the estimated requirement for Controlled Atmosphere (CA) storage is 6.00 lakh metric tonnes (30 per cent of the annual production of fruit crop), and the Union Territory has 2.92 LMT capacity.
He said the department is seeking to increase this capacity gradually over five years.
Various initiatives, such as seminars, are being conducted in each district to make the youth aware of the incentives for setting up cold storage infrastructure and other post-harvest activities.
As most such storages are located in the Industrial Growth Centre at Lassipora, Pulwama, and the Industrial Estate at Aglar, Shopian, efforts are underway to establish sector-specific industrial estates for horticulture in other districts, Dar said.
The minister said his department has set up two fruit and vegetable markets in Pulwama district — Prichoo in Pulwama and Pachhar in Rajpora.
“Both mandis are functional. The basic infrastructure is available in these mandis. However, up-gradation and improvement of the mandis is a continuous process for which funds to the tune of Rs 1.28 crore and Rs 3.68 crore respectively have been earmarked for up-gradation of these mandis under NABARD for the year 2025-26,” Dar’s response read.