From January to November 2023, 2 crore boxes of apples have been imported from 30 countries. Due to this the Indian farmers have lost crores of rupees.
In this, the maximum number of Apple boxes are imported from Iran, Afghanistan, New Zealand, USA and Brazil. Among these are complaints of illegal importation of Apple boxes from Iran to India.
These imports are routed to India via Afghanistan due to South Asia’s seamless industrial zone. Most of these are low quality fruits. Due to this, the price of apples in India is considered to have decreased. The farmers of Himachal Pradesh have been greatly affected by this problem.
There is a situation where they preserve their apples in large quantities in cold storage. Due to this, the value of Himachal Pradesh apples is decreasing. This has caused a loss of several crores of rupees to the farmers of the state.
To avoid these losses, there is a demand that apples grown in India should be imported from abroad after they are fully sold. Presenting this demand, the Himachal Pradesh farmers are demanding that the import duty be increased from Rs.50 to Rs.100 per kg.
The Himachal Pradesh government has also written to Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal for the farmers of their state. In this letter, ‘Agriculture Minister Jagatsingh Negi mentioned that ‘not only Himachal Pradesh but also Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand farmers are affected by the imported apples. Central government should raise the issue of Indian apple farmers with the World Trade Center. The import duty should be increased to 100 percent’, he said.