Date:12/02/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/02/12/stories/2008021251950300.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Rain damages mango crop in 1 lakh acres

Correspondent

Government urged to lay railway track to market yard

Market committee has offered 2 cr for laying railway track
Ryots depending on commission agents for sale of mangoes

VIZIANAGARAM: Unseasonal rains that have been lashing the district for the last three days damaged mango crop in about one lakh acres, according to Mopada Krishna Murty, president of District Mango Growers’ Association.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Mr. Krishna Murty said due to fog during the last fortnight and incessant rains the crop was damaged at the flowering stage itself. Last year, inadequate transport facility and dependence on commission agents hit the growers hard, he said.

Keeping in view the growers’ plight over the years, the TDP Government had constructed a mango market yard at V.T. Agraharam but in the absence of a railway siding the yard was in disuse, he said. The Agriculture Market Committee had offered to share half the cost of Rs. 2 crore on railway track. After the change of government in 2004 the proposal remained in cold storage.

Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, who inaugurated the market yard in February 2005, assured the association that the track would be laid in a year but it was not fulfilled till now, he regretted.

The farmers were again depending on commission agents for sale of mangoes, he said and added that while growers in Godavari districts were earning Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 30,000 per acre, here they were getting not more than Rs. 5,000. It would be an end to commission agents if the railway track was laid and opened, he said and hoped that traders from across the nation would visit the market yard to lift stocks directly from the growers.