SHOPIAN: The Fruit Mandi located on the banks of fast-flowing Ranbi Ara is expected to record a much better turnover this fall even though the apple production is barely half of the 2022’s bumper crop, Rais Ahmad, the Secretary General of the Mandi said. The mandi is currently having more than 300 non-native buyers most of them from South India.
“Our crop (in comparison to north Kashmir) has a better shelf life so it becomes easier for the trade in remote South India to take Shopian apple,” Rais said. Most of the few thousand trucks parked around the mandi are from Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Kerala and other states. “We have a better market even though the crop is much less.”
Last year, Rais said the mandi was getting nearly four lakh boxes a day, which has gone down to less than half. “Despite this, the returns are better.”
Insisting that the administration must speed up the embankment of the fruit market and clear the proposal for the construction of 600 shops for the licence holders, Rais said the Association is willing to move a step ahead in ensuring the market flourishes fast. “We work for most of the year and last year our turnover was around Rs 5000 crore,” Rais said.
The Shopain apple mandi is the only apple market in Kashmir that has a cold chain attached to it which currently has around 50,000-ton storage capacity. “This helps us have a close liaison with the chain and improves the grower margins,” he said. The market is also very close to the cold chain cluster at Lassipora, which is the largest in South Asia.
