Ahsaan Ali and Urvat il Wuska
For Kashmir’s apple growers, this year’s peak harvest season has turned into a catastrophe. Thousands of trucks loaded with fruit have been stranded for weeks along the battered Srinagar–Jammu National Highway, leaving crates of apples to rot under open skies.
Months of labour and hope are being reduced to waste, pushing growers, traders, and transporters to despair and debt.
“We are on the roads now, pleading, but who will listen to us?” said Muhammad Ashraf, a grower from Pulwama. “Every day our apples rot in stranded trucks while the government sits silent. Fifteen days have passed, and they could not clear even a 300-meter stretch of the highway — the only lifeline for our fruit. If they cannot open such a small stretch, what should we expect from them?”
Authorities have diverted trucks to the Mughal Road, an alternate but treacherous route, where growers say they are allowed only four hours of movement. “Three of those hours are lost in traffic jams,” Ashraf said. “By the time our trucks crawl forward, the apples inside are already spoiled. The sweat and labour of a whole year are reduced to waste.”
The government has touted the launch of two parcel trains to move apple consignments, each carrying the equivalent of roughly 50 truckloads. But with thousands of trucks stranded, growers say this is ‘an insult, not a solution.’
“Nearly ₹1,000 crore worth of produce has already been lost,” Ashraf said. “We were forced to throw away crate after crate of apples. Do you know what that means for a farmer? To take the sweat of a whole year — the only hope to repay debts — and toss it into the garbage? It feels like burying your own children with your bare hands.”
The financial fallout is rippling through Kashmir. Behind the numbers are families wondering how to pay school fees, buy rations, or prepare for winter. With tourism already decimated, horticulture — which contributes nearly 8% to Jammu and Kashmir’s GDP — is now under threat.
Bashir Ahmad Bashir, president of the Fruit Mandi in Srinagar, attributes the crisis to systemic failures.
“The highway was already in poor condition. The government should have monitored it 24/7, especially during the rainy season,” Bashir said. “When heavy rainfall damaged the Jammu sector, coinciding with peak harvest, we alerted authorities through the media. We told them urgent restoration was necessary; otherwise, Kashmir’s horticulture sector would suffer tremendously.”
Even when the Mughal Road opened, Bashir said, most trucks could not use it. “More than half had to return to the mandi.”
Bishir says approximately 75% of Kashmir’s population depends directly or indirectly on horticulture. When their produce is stranded, buyers outside Kashmir don’t get their apples on time. The losses are now estimated between ₹1,000 crore and ₹1,200 crore.
As for compensation, Bashir was blunt. “After the 2014 floods, after 2019, even after COVID, growers received little or nothing. A farmer whose produce was worth lakhs was damaged once and got only ₹2,000. This time will be no different.”
The crisis has also paralysed truckers. Anil Kumar, a driver from Jammu, has been stuck since September 9.
“Our apples are rotting day by day,” he said. “Rain is a natural disaster, but what about the government? Their inaction is turning a natural calamity into a man-made crisis.”
“Despite relentless rains and a major hill slide, NHAI teams are working tirelessly to keep this key highway operational. A 2-lane temporary diversion has been built, and traffic movement has resumed. Over a dozen excavators and 50+ earthmovers are deployed round the clock for clearing and repairs,” posted Nitin Gadkari, the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, on his social media.
“We are determined to restore this vital national highway to full strength at the earliest, ensuring safety and convenience for all road users,” he wrote on X.
