Nizamabad: Agricultural market to down shutter from today

Nizamabad: The Agricultural Market Committee (AMC) in Nizamabad city will be closed for a week starting from Monday (July 13), after two traders were tested corona positive. AMC staff, loaders, clerks and other people, who work in the market committee were panicked as the two traders' family members were also got infected.

At present, turmeric, sesame, red gram, cotton and groundnut purchase is going on in the market. Turmeric, sesame and red gram arrivals have increased in the recent times and traders also eager to buy turmeric as export opportunities are available. Other agricultural products are also coming to the market but in smaller quantities.

But two traders infecting with the virus, made the district Merchants Association to decide to discontinue its market operations to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and the Association members sought permission from District Collector C Narayana Reddy for the same.

Association president Rajesh Dalvia, general secretary Bachu Purushottam Gupta and treasurer Santosh Kumar Gupta informed the Collector that they are voluntarily shutting the operations from July 13 to 20 due to the high prevalence of coronavirus, as they were afraid that farmers also may get infected.

Not only this, the farmers may spread the infection in their villages also, they observed. But the farmers were unable to digest the decision of closing the market. They said agricultural activities will be at the peak in August and if the market is closed, then they couldn't bring their produce to market and sell.

Anksapur farmer Chokkam Santosh was worried that farmers will suffer severe losses with the market closure. He said that it will cost them tens of thousands of rupees to store turmeric in cold storage, which is an extra burden.

Farmers are getting a minimum price of Rs 10,000 per quintal. But about 35,000 quintals of sesame is still stocked with the farmers, which was not sold in summer due to lockdown. but now with the market closed, storage will be a difficult task for farmers.

Even if they store the yield, pests and worms will damage their produce, he lamented.