Minister for Horticulture, Syed Basharat Bukhari informed the House that 35 Fruit Mandis including three Fruit Terminals are under construction in various parts of the State.Replying to a question of legislator Shah Mohammad Tantray, the Minister said that the government is constructing a Fruit and Vegetable Market over an area of 26.06 Kanal in Poonch at a cost of Rs 7.00 crore. He said an amount of Rs 0.92 crore has been incurred till March 2017, whereas an amount of Rs.0.36 crore was released during the current financial year (2017-18) for completion of Administrative Block and Auction Shed.Responding to another part of the question, the Minister said that various Centrally Sponsored and State Sector Schemes are being implemented in different areas including Haveli constituency of Poonch District for promotion of Horticulture sector. He said major activities undertaken include plantation of Ultra High Density (imported) plants in the fruit plant nursery, Rajpura Mandi as a germ plasma for propagation of high yield variety of apple; establishment of Pecan Nut Village at Ajote, Degwar, Maldyan and Khari; construction of Vermi Compost Units, creation of water sources, on-farm handling units, protected cultivation, farmer awareness/human resource development, exposure visit of farmers within and outside the State and production of quality planting material in departmental nursery Ajote.
The Minister said that an amount of Rs.1.18 crore was utilized during the years 2016-17 and 2017-18 under different schemes in Haveli constituency.Mr Altaf Ahmad, Mr Bashir Ahmad Dar, Mr Abdul Majid Larmi, Mr Abdul Rahim Rather and Mr Abdul Majid Paddar raised supplementary questions to the main question. They sought streamlining of marketing facilities in their constituencies and further up-gradation of existing infrastructure in the fruit and vegetable mandis to facilitate the fruit and vegetable growers.