Shimla : The Revenue, tribal development and horticulture Minister of the state government of Himachal Pradesh, Jagat Singh Negi said that the state government is firm to fulfill the promises made to farmers. He said that the state horticulture department will monitor the private players influencing the farming product in the state in the upcoming days. He said that the state government will soon be finalized to implement and start the universal packaging material for farmers.
Regarding the differences in the selling of agricultural products to the consumers, he said "All the guarantees have been given to the farmers of the state, will be fulfilled. We are looking into resolving this issue and finding a solution to the issue of the farmers selling their apples and other products to get a good price for crops. In the Kullu area, the apples are sold in Kilograms, in Shimla, Kinnaur, Chamba and some parts of the state the apple is sold in boxes and those boxes are not uniform we are looking into it.
"I have conducted a preliminary meeting with horticulture growers and legislators. I have directed the department to conduct a meeting with the Associations of the growers after this we will conduct a meeting with the Secretaries and we shall decide the next roadmap for farmers," said horticulture minister Jagat Singh Negi. He said that the state government has taken up matters with the union government to get the prices of apples and other fruits equal to the farmers getting in Jammu Kashmir.
He said the Department would soon decide to finalise the Universal carton for apple packaging so that farmers can sell the equal-weight fruit in the market. "By the end of February and March, we shall try to finalize the implementation of Universal cartons for packaging and a decision will be taken earliest so that the farmers can get material before," he added.
He said that the central government is buying apples from Jammu and Kashmir, it should buy apples from Himachal Pradesh and give the same relief as the farmers of Jammu and Kashmir get.
"We will take up this issue with the union government so that we can help the farmers with both schemes of state and Union governments. Apart from this we shall also buy and start processing plants for apples under MIS (market intervention scheme) so that the glut in the farmer is regulated and good quality gets good prices.," Horticulture Minister further added.
Negi also held a press conference in Shimla today to clarify that the demand of farmers will be fulfilled and the opposition BJP is misleading people in the state on the issue of promises made to the farmers on market prices for crops. He said that the monopoly of some private players including in Adani group to influence the market will also be regulated and a policy will be formulated soon.
"It is true that the controlled atmospheric (CA) stores and facilities of the Adani stores buy the required fruit and influence the market. We are looking forward to coming up with a policy to regulate these two-three private players and this will be done after consulting farmers and we shall try to give them fair prices as promised in our manifesto too," said Negi.