Himachal Pradesh Congress chief Kuldeep Singh Rathore on Wednesday accused the state government of ignoring the problems faced by apple growers and said the government has left them to fend for themselves during the peak apple season amid COVID-19 pandemic.

Addressing media, Rathore said he visited various apple procurement centres to get firsthand knowledge of issues faced by horticulturalists and there was rampant mismanagement on the part of the government at these centres.

“The officials at these markets are not keeping any record of farmers and businessmen on arrival and departure.

Besides, no thermal scanning is being done and most importantly, there is no check on drivers, involved in transportation of apple, about their travel history that raises questions on arrangements made by the government in view of COVID-19,” he added.

Rathore said Congress party had cautioned the state government on the issue of the shortage of labour well on time but still no proper arrangements were made, making it difficult for the growers to harvest apple crop.

Further, the condition of quarantine centres where labourers were being kept, were dismal as 20 to 25 people were being made to stay in a single room and use one washroom.

Rathore further stated that the state government was incompetent to deal COVID- 19 situation and advised the government to maintain proper record of persons entering and exiting markets besides conducting thermal screening of everyone.

He also raised concern over scab disease in apple belts and said the Horticulture minister was informed about the issue by the horticulture experts well in time but due to his sheer negligence, the apple growers were facing heavy losses to their crops.

“The scab disease first appeared in apple crop in 1982 and continued for 3 years till 1985 but the Congress government at that time made sure that all scab effected apples were purchased and financial assistance was provided to the farmers,” he said. He urged Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur to follow suit and provide financial aid to farmers whose apple crop was affected by scab.

Rathore also lashed out at State Horticulture minister Mahender Singh Thakur for his inaction on Rs 1134 crore World Bank project for Horticulture and said if timely action was taken, it wouldn’t have lapsed and besides, the farmers wouldn’t have to face any problems.

He further urged the Chief Minister to immediately issue e-Covid passes to the horticulturists going out of state to sell their apple crop as delay in passes could badly affect their highly perishable crop.