Surge in fruit exports from Valley

By
Daily Excelsior
-

Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Oct 14: There has been a massive increase in fruit exports from the Kashmir valley during the current season with the cumulative exports touching a whopping 300366 MTs between April 2016 and September 2016 against only 124990 MTs during the corresponding period of the last year.
According to the data released by the Department of Horticulture (Planning and Marketing), a substantial swell in fruit exports from the Valley was witnessed during the month of September 2016 with 22117 truckloads crossing Lower Munda Toll Post between September 1, 2016 and September 30, 2016 carrying 249996 MTs of fresh and dry fruit.
“Last year only 66259 MTs of fruit in 7291 truckloads went out of the Valley during the month of September,” an official of the Department of Horticulture (Planning and Marketing) said.
Giving details of the fresh and dry fruit exports, the official said that 296789 MTs of fresh fruit have been dispatched out of the Valley between April 2016 and September 2016 in 26940 truckloads while last year the exports of fresh fruit during this period were just 122987 MTS with 14232 truckloads moving out of the Valley.
He said similarly the exports of dry fruit have also witnessed manifold increase with 3577 MTs being exported from the Valley in 643 truckloads between April 2016 and September 2016 while last year only 2003 MTs of dry fruit were exported in 426 truckloads during this period.
The official said that the volume of the fresh fruit that has been dispatched outside the Valley during September 2016 is 248571 MTs in 21866 truckloads while 1425 MTs of dry fruit in 251 truckloads has been dispatched during last month. He said in 2015 only 65734 MTs of fresh fruit in 7192 truckloads had moved outside the Valley during the month of September while the volume of dry fruit exports during this period was 525 MTs involving 99 truckloads.
Pertinently, the horticulture sector contributes around Rs 5000 crore to the State’s economy annually and it is the core sector of J&K’s agriculture economy with about 4.5 lakh families engaged in it. Around 20 per cent area of the State is under horticultural crops.
Among the horticultural crops in the State apple occupies the predominant position constituting around 45 percent of the total area under fruit crops.

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