by Masood Hussain
SOPORE: When a Sopore trader sent a truckload of American Trail apples, an export-grade variety popular in Bangladesh, he thought he was about to make a decent profit. The truck, carrying fruit worth Rs 20 lakh, rolled out of north Kashmir’s Sopore fruit mandi amid hopes that the Bangladeshi market would fetch him a better price than the sluggish domestic trade.
By the time the apples reached the Bangladesh border, the deal had turned into a financial catastrophe. The trader spent Rs 10 lakh on transport and paid an additional Rs 21.50 lakh as anti-dumping duty imposed by Dhaka. The total cost ballooned to over Rs 50 lakh, only for him to recover a meagre Rs 10 lakh after part of the consignment rotted.
“This truckload will be remembered in the mandi’s history,” said Mudasir Ahmad, one of Sopore’s top executives, “because it tells the story of how our entire marketing chain has collapsed this year.”
This year, Sopore, the heart of Kashmir’s apple trade and the second-largest fruit mandi in India after Delhi’s Azadpur, has been through one of its worst seasons in recent memory. Torrential rains in late August triggered landslides and washed away portions of the Srinagar–Jammu National Highway, keeping it closed for nearly three weeks. “The road was officially open, but it still took trucks three to four days to reach Jammu,” Mudasir said. “By then, the fruit would begin to rot. The reputation of Kashmir’s apple suffered; traders in outside mandis started experiencing glut, and the prices nosedived.”
On a normal day, Sopore mandi moves around four lakh apple boxes, serviced by over 2,000 traders and buyers. But this year, Mudasir said, everything came to a standstill. “At least 10,000 vehicles were held up on two different occasions in the last three fortnights. The highway closure created a glut in outside mandis as delayed trucks arrived together. Each day of detention meant hundreds of trucks stranded and thousands of boxes perishing.”
Last year, Sopore alone sent out 2.25 crore apple boxes; this year, it may not even touch one crore. “Every box costs Rs 500–600 to produce, but in the mandi, it does not even fetch that much,” Mudasir said. “That means the loss starts right at the mandi gate.” He estimated the loss from Sopore mandi alone at around Rs 1,000 crore, adding that the cumulative losses across Kashmir’s mandis could run into several thousand crore rupees.
The highway blockade, he said, exposed the absence of a proper logistical roadmap. “If NH-44 gets blocked, what is our Plan B?” he asked. “We have no alternative transport model, no railway connectivity suited to perishable fruit, and no efficient cold storage network for small growers.”
Admitting that the Mughal Road should have been a natural alternative, Mudasir said it is narrow and it is not fit for major trucks. Authorities have permitted only 6-wheel trucks, and Kashmir apple usually uses much bigger ones. “Even this road could have been managed better, but it is not,” he said. “When the entire Kashmir tries to use this road for transporting apples, it jams, and it takes a long time to pass through.”
While the government has touted the new railway freight corridor between Kashmir and the plains, built for Rs 42000 crore, Mudasir believes it is impractical for apple transport. “A cement train can afford to be unloaded six times, but not a train full of apples. By the time the fruit reaches the market, it is finished.”
Lassipora, south Kashmir’s cold storage hub, has about 60 Controlled Atmosphere (CA) units. But Mudasir said these are mostly occupied by big traders. “Small growers who have a few thousand crates never get space. They are forced to sell early, even at a loss, because storage is monopolised by those who advance cash before harvest.”
The situation has hit not only traders but also tens of thousands of families dependent on the fruit economy. “Around 30 to 35 lakh families in Kashmir rely on apple-related work. In Sopore alone, more than a thousand labourers earn their bread by loading, grading, and packing fruit. When this trade suffers, their families suffer too. From a worker’s marriage to a child’s education, everything depends on this fruit,” Mudasir said.
He said that while Jammu legislators had contributed to flood relief funds during recent disasters, no such empathy was visible for apple growers in the Valley. “We die every year, and nobody is looking at us,” he said bitterly.
The government had announced a Market Intervention Scheme (MIS) to buy lower-grade fruit for processing, but it never materialised. Under this scheme, the government would fund the purchase of C and D-grade apples and give them to apple crushing units. The scheme was introduced a decade ago and then rolled back. “The Doabgah processing factory has been shut for eight years now. If that unit worked, it would absorb the second and third-grade apples, leaving the better variety for market sale,” Mudasir said. “The factory could have been our safety valve.”
Insurance, too, has remained an unfulfilled promise. “The government said this year they would start crop insurance for apple growers. Why is it not happening in Jammu and Kashmir?” he asked.
Even banks have begun to worry. “Teams from HDFC Bank came to assess the impact because they realised the market is in trouble. They have huge exposure here,” Mudasir added.
The Sopore fruit mandi, spread over hundreds of kanals and handling fruit worth Rs 15–17 crore a day in a normal season, now looks subdued. “We are unlikely to match our own record of the past in sales and handling of fruit this year,” Mudasir said. “We have been working here for 25 years, but never saw such a season.”
Owing to the highway interruptions, Mudasir said that the freight costs have skyrocketed. The freight for Delhi and more than doubled. “We pay Rs 350 per box for Kolkata, and then we sell the box for Rs 400.”
Local traders and fruit associations have appealed to the government for immediate relief. “BJP leader Ravinder Raina visited us, and he told us that the Jammu and Kashmir government must move formally. But so far, we have seen no initiative from the administration,” Mudasir said. “The elected government led by Omar Abdullah should take this up with the Centre. The Union government helps farmers across India. Why can’t it look at Kashmir’s apple crisis the same way?”
For now, Sopore’s once-bustling mandi stands as a stark reminder of what happens when nature, policy, and infrastructure combine against a fragile rural economy. “A single truckload lost Rs 40 lakh,” Mudasir said. “Now imagine the story of 10,000 trucks.”
