Anantapur: Collector strives to help farmers for transporting horticulture products

Anantapur: District Collector Gandham Chandrudu, who realised the impact of corona lockdown on horticulture farmers, swung into action after discussing with Deputy Director of Horticulture Subbarayudu and directed for immediate easing of restrictions on marketing and transportation.

In the neighbouring Karnataka, horticulture produce worth several thousands of crores were allowed to decay and thrown into the pits while in Chickballapur, the bordering town of the district, has witnessed dumping of some Rs 600 crore worth of sweet grapes into pits by frustrated farmers, due to corona lockdown.

Praising the efforts of the Collector, Dhaku Naik, a water melon farmer of Ramapuram village, said that at a time when people are talking of proposals of indefinite lockdown, the Collector's intervention helped him to market his 1 tonne melons.

Collector's initiatives on war-footing in the last five days resulted in inland exports of fruits and vegetables worth roughly Rs 800 crore to Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Chennai. The Horticulture officials have so far helped farmers to market 17,302 tonnes of bananas, 2,008 tonnes of water melons, 200 tonnes grapes, 110 tonnes of mangoes, 160 tonnes pomegranates, 100 tonnes of papaya, 200 tonnes of sweet oranges, 1,000 tonnes tomatoes, 30 tonnes of flowers and 1,020 tonnes of vegetables. The officials have organized 1,500 goods transport vehicles during the past 5 days.