Jahangeer Ganaie
Srinagar, Oct 4: For the last 12 years, no fresh assessment of saffron land in Kashmir has been carried out raising questions over the seriousness of authorities in saving saffron fields from being turned into commercial and residential colonies.
Top officials in the agriculture department said that the last assessment was carried out when the National Saffron Mission was launched in Kashmir in 2010.
“The assessment is to be done by the revenue department after every 10 years. Our job is only to see developmental aspects,” officials said.
Officials said the survey carried in 2010 showed that the land under saffron in Kashmir is 3715 hectares, however, as per earlier records there was around 5100 hectares of land under saffron cultivation.
“Since then no fresh survey has been conducted and it is obvious that land under saffron has decreased further due to construction of residential houses, commercial complexes, switching to apple cultivation,” they said.
Officials said the real figure will come to fore only when a detailed survey of land under saffron cultivation will be carried out by the revenue department.
Locals from Pampore also said that land under saffron is shrinking as new residential or commercial complexes are being constructed. Also, some people have switched to other crops as the government has failed to provide attention towards saffron growers.
Locals said that the much hyped National Saffron Mission has also failed as authorities couldn’t even make the water pumps functional which were constructed for watering purposes in dry seasons.
Official documents accessed revealed that since year 2012-13, the land under Saffron in Kashmir was 3,665 hectares and till now it is same as no assessment has been carried out since then while the production in year 2012-13 was 12,45 metric tons with the yield of 3.45 quintals per hectare.
In 2013-14, the production was 14.01 metric tons with yield of 3.82 quintals per hectare while in 2014-15 the production was 5.57 metric ton with yield 1.52 quintal per hectare, it said.
In 2015-16 the production of saffron was 16.17 metric tons with the yield of 4.41 quintals per hectare while in 2016-17, the production was 16.45 metric ton with yield 4.49 quintal per hectare.
As per document, the production in year 2017-18 decreased to 5.20 metric ton and yield 1.42 quintal per hectare and in year 2018-19 the production was 5.65 metric ton and yield 1.54 quintal per hectare and in year 2019-20 the production was 0.02 metric ton and yield of 4.44 quintal per hectare.
As per data the saffron production in year 2020-21 was again 0.02 metric ton and yield 4.92 quintal per hectare and in year 2021-22 the production was again 0.02 metric ton and yield of4.92 quintal per hectare in year.
