The repeated closure of the National Highway (NH-44) has been one of the most common challenges recently, considering the highway is an important lifeline connected to the rest of the country.
These closures, due to disasters like landslides and bad weather, become a logistical nightmare for everyone. Still, it is the farmer community in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) that suffers the most and quietly bears the consequences of the disruption caused by such closures.
As the highway closes, so does the livelihood of thousands of farmers. Their perishable products, such as crisp apples, fresh tomatoes, sweet cherries, and fragrant saffron stalks, sit idle and miss their transportation opportunity.
This situation cannot continue, and the response must be as strong and resilient as the spirit of the Kashmiri farmer.
It is time for the Jammu and Kashmir administration and the Central Government to create a robust partnership and announce an extensive, compassionate, and timely compensation package for farmers impacted by the closures.
This package is not only crucial from an economic standpoint but also serves as a statement of solidarity.
An alliance between the Union Territory and the Centre can establish a package that is both speedy and substantial, and in order to do so this package must go beyond relief models and should include the following:
A transparent and expedited system to directly compensate farmers for verified losses is needed to ensure they receive assistance within the same agricultural cycle and not after years.
The ultimate answered is resilience. A large proportion of the package should focus on constructing a network of modern cold storage facilities and controlled atmosphere warehouses along the highway corridor, allowing farmers to store their harvest during periods of disruption and turn losses into pauses.
While fully addressing resilience is an important goal, there are other appropriate responses. The package can provide immediate support in the form of subsidies for air-lifting highly perishable goods during longer closures of the highway and encourage the emergence of local supply chains that are less centralized.
Encouraging farmers to spread into less perishable but high-value crops can help reduce the risk. The package can provide training and support to finance this transition and allow farmers to directly connect with new markets that are less reliant on one highway based supply chain.
