Nalgonda: Good harvest, poor purchase

Nalgonda: Despite a great harvest this year, the sweet lime farmers in the district have incurred heavy loss due to the lockdown.

Farmers cultivated sweet lime in 46,000 acres and produced yield of 40,000 metric tonnes. Of the total yield, farmers had sold hardly 40 per cent of the produce and the remaining 60 per cent fruits are drying away on the trees itself due to insufficient marketing facilities.

Nalgond district is famous for sweet lime cultivation. Last year during this Kattera season, sweet lime farmers got Rs 40,000 per ton for their produce, whereas this year, they got Rs 12,000 per ton due to insufficient market facilities. Local traders bought sweet lime fruit with changed colour at 5 per kg; green mosambi at Rs 12 per kg; and dotted mosambi at Rs 7 per kg, pushing the farmers into debt trap.

The State government as part of boosting the confidence of the farmers, started procurement in Nalgonda but the purpose was not served and shutdown within two days.

Though the famous sweet lime market at Delhi, Ajampur market was opened with the initiation of Minister for Home for State Affairs Kishan Reddy, it was shut down within a week after corona positive case was registered in the market. The closure of Ajampur market had pushed sweet lime farmers of the district into deep crisis after selling 150 tonnes of sweet lime in the market.

On the directions of the State government, district horticulture department had purchased 70 tonnes of sweet lime and distributed freely to the corona warriors.

District BJP president Sridhar Reddy and CPM district secretary Mudireddy Sudhakar Reddy demanded the government to come to the rescue of sweet lime farmers of the district by procuring the yield through IKP centers similar to paddy procurement.