Nursery Growers Association of Kashmir On Thursday urged Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, Additional Chief Secretary Atul Dulloo and other higher authority of Horticulture Department to put a special focus on their livelihood and introduce more and more schemes for engaging the youth.
“The Horticulture is one of the important sectors of Jammu and Kashmir. The sector contributes immensely to strengthen financial conditions of the J&K, poverty alleviation, and employment generation and is core sector of Jammu and Kashmir agriculture,” the Association said in a statement issued here to this newspaper. The variety of horticultural products of the Jammu and Kashmir, it says, earned worldwide fame because of its good quality and taste. The fruit crops grown in the J&K are apple (varieties traditional as well as new High density ) almond, walnuts, pears, cherries and apricots in temperate areas and mango, citrus, litchi, papaya, guava etc in sub tropical areas, the Association said. “Realizing the importance of the Horticulture sector in J&K, the Horticulture department has recently been separated from agriculture production department to the secretariat level. A separate full-fledged Department of Horticulture is being established in order to give focused attention to the horticulture sector which is the backbone and symbol of the flourishing economic condition of Jammu and Kashmir,” it said, adding, “We the nursery growers of Horticulture are the backbone of this industry. It is because of our hard work and contribution that Horticulture is increasing contribution in GDP. We growers are working very hard in nurseries to promote this industry.”
As such, the association said that it makes a humble request to higher authority of the Horticulture Department to support and strengthen them by providing “enabling environment to enhance the contribution which will deliver value to our enterprise by increasing returns to our fraternity (growers) and enhance employment by providing more and more schemes.”
“we are almost 20 thousand families on this trade and more than 40 lakh plants of different varieties are in our nurseries as per departmental registrations but unfortunately there are meager schemes for us to grow,” the association said, adding, “Our youth are now-a-days engaged in this sector but alas lack of schemes makes them vulnerable. So please and please focus on our livelihood and introduce more and more schemes for engaging our youth”.
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