UP mango growers seek help from Yogi govt as season begins

Lucknow, April 17 (IANS) The Mango Growers Association of India (MGAI) has appealed to the Uttar Pradesh government to provide transportation facilities to mango growers in the 18 odd mango belts in the state.

In a letter sent to UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, MGAI President Insram Ali has said that the mango crop is ripening and certain facilities are needed to ensure that the crop is not adversely affected.

Talking to IANS, Insram Ali said that 24-hour power and water supply must be ensured in the mango cultivation areas where the crop is in the final stages of ripening.

“We have requested the government to purchase mango directly form the growers just like the direct purchases are being ensured or wheat, potato and other crops. Mango is a major fruit crop in the state and in the lockdown situation, it will be difficult for the growers to export the fruit which has a short shelf life. The government should fix a minimum support price and purchase the mango directly from the growers,” he said.

Ali further asked the government to allow factories manufacturing cardboard and corrugated boxes to start functioning in order to allow packaging of mango.

“Unless these packaging boxes are made available to us, we cannot transport mango to the various districts and ‘mandis’. This will lead to distress sale and mango growers will suffer huge financial losses,” he said.

The MGAI, in its letter, has called upon the government to waive off interest on credit cards of mango growers and also the power bills for three months.

Insram Ali said that if train movement does not normalize by next month, special passes should be issued to mango growers to transport the fruit in trucks to various destinations in the country.

In Uttar Pradesh, mango is produced in an area of 2.5 lakh hectares. Lucknow, Pratapgarh, Allahabad, Bulandshahr, Saharanpur, Faizabad, Varanasi, Moradabad, Barabanki, Meerut, Unnao, Sitapur, Hardoi, Gorakhpur, Basti, Amroha and Mathura are mango producing belts where varieties like ‘Chausa’, ‘Dussheri’, ‘Fazli’, ‘Langda’, ‘Mallika’ and ‘Amrapali’ are produced.

–IANS

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