The Government today announced first ever Support Price Based Procurement System for apple growers of Kashmir aimed at benefitting more than 3 million farmers.This was stated by Rohit Kansal, Principal Secretary Planning, Monitoring and Development, who is also government’s spokesperson in a briefing here today.Elaborating on the scheme, Mr. Kansal said that the scheme has been launched taking note of the concerns of apple growers regarding rates and transportation of apple produce. He further said there will be no compulsion on farmers to sell their produce under this arrangement. The rates would be to incentivize their sales and the scheme would leave no scope for distress sale of the produce by growers.Rohit Kansal said the money will be transferred to the farmers through Direct Benefit Transfer within three working days. He added that Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir and his team of Deputy Commissioners are constantly monitoring the process.He informed that four collection centers have been identified by the government at Fruit Mandi Parimpora, Sopore, Shopian and Botengoo for procurement of apples from the apple growers under the scheme.Principal Secretary also said that the government has identified 85 welfare schemes of different kinds cutting across different departments which are individual beneficiary oriented like scholarships, pensions, housing for rural and urban etc for the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh and without any budgetary allocation limits all eligible beneficiaries are to be covered under these schemes.On the law and order situation, the spokesman informed that restrictions have been lifted from all areas whileas traffic movement on roads has increased manifold.He added that landlines are fully functional whileas mobile phones are considerably working in Kupwara and Handwara.Divisional Commissioner ,Kashmir, Baseer Ahmad Khan, IGP Kashmir, S.P Pani, Director Information and Public Relations Dr. Syed Sehrish Asgar and Director Horticulture, Kashmir Ajaz Ahmad Bhat were also present during the presser.