By: Minya Tufail, Asstt. Bureau Chief, ICN J&K
SOPORE: A 10 – minute -long hailstorm created havoc in the areas of sopore last night. Many villages including Rafiabad, Zaingeer, Sangrama & upper town received a continuous hailstorm.
Hailstorm caused huge losses to the fruits and vegetables in the area. Farmers were distressed and recalled that it’s third major hailstorm in area in the current year.
Farmer from Rafiabad said that, “ Last year fruit growers brunt the losses due to erratic highway closure. This year uneven hailstorm already dashed our hopes and orchardists are in huge desperation.”
Due to recent closure of highway, the orchardists couldn’t export fruits to the destinations at an appropriate time and faced huge losses. Government promised them compensation but have not came up with the same so far.
President Sopore fruit Mandi Fayaz Ahmad Malik said, “ Nature has been very cruel to us these days. It’s not in our hands to stop the natural havoc. We had timely informed government to bring our crop under the insurance policy but successive governments did not paid any heed to us. We have started to get the statistic of the depth of loss and will soon meet advisor of the Governor with an humble request of compensation”.
