At a time when the country reels under a lockdown imposed to curb the spread of Coronavirus, the disruption in the supply of vegetables and fruits has concerned the authorities and the people alike. As such, Himachal Pradesh offers a ray of hope as the off-season vegetable production in the state is enough to serve major cities like Delhi.
The state government has directed the agricultural marketing committees to ensure transportation of the vegetables and fruits to different parts of the country keeping in view the sanitization, social distancing and other guidelines that ought to be followed during the lockdown.
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Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur has directed the officials to allow growers to bring the vegetables from farms to local Mandis and provide them with proper permits for the purpose.
The state administration has adopted a mechanism to market the produce across the country with 32 Mandis where norms like social distancing and sanitization will be properly followed.
“We sanitize the Mandi every day at 7 am. After the vegetables and fruits are dispatched, we again fumigate the premises,” Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) chairman (Shimla & Kinnaur) Naresh Sharma said.
Himachal Pradesh has 31 APMC collection centers. Sharma said that there will not be any shortage of vegetables from Himachal till September end. He said Himachal Pradesh has a stock of 10 lakh apple boxes in all the cold storage facilities of the state and the state government has given permission to market them as early as possible.
