Samoon takes stock of vegetable, fruit traders’ problems.

Daily Excelsior

Jammu, 15 July 2013

Commissioner, Agriculture Production Department, Dr Asgar Hassan Samoon, visited the Fruit and Vegetable Mandi Narwal to take stock of problems being faced by the vegetable and fruit traders. On the occasion, Samoon held a meeting with Fruit and Vegetable traders which was attended by Director Agriculture Jammu Ajay Khajuria, Director Horticulture Jammu Anil Sharma, MD J&K HPMC Syed Rafiq Ahmed besides President Fruit Association Jammu Rajesh Gupta, President Vegetable Association, Ramesh Parihar, Chief Executive Mandies Digvijay Gupta, Asstt. Director Marketing Priyadarshini Parihar and representatives of both the Associations. While interacting with the representatives of traders Associations, Samoon said that their genuine issues regarding drainage and sewerage of the Fruit Mandi, augmentation of tube well for meeting the water supply scarcity, lack of basic infrastructure and delayed completion of sheds will be redressed on priority. He instructed the concerned implementing agencies to construct a meeting hall in the Fruit Mandi at the earliest. He directed ERA to start the augmentation work on tube well and overhead tank within next 15 days. He also directed the constructing agency of the Horticulture (P&M) Department to complete the mechanization and drainage facility, in addition to completion of two auction platforms in Phase -2 for which the work is in progress. Responding to the demand of uninterrupted power supply to Mandi, the Commissioner assured that the matter will be taken up with the concerned department. It was also decided that the land available with HPMC will be utilized for construction of a modern multi-utility/commodity cold storage on public private partnership mode. The other points which were discussed in the meeting included implementation of APMR Act and amendment thereof for which recommendations from different Fruit and Vegetable Traders’ Unions are being sought.