Former Horticulture Minister Narinder Bragta met senior BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley and senior officials of the Agriculture and Commerce Ministries in New Delhi and apprised them with the adverse impact on Himachali apple due to imported apple.
Bragta said that he had urged the BJP leaders to take up the issue both at the political as well as official level so that something could be done to stop large-scale import of apple from abroad.
He said the senior BJP leaders in Delhi had assured that they would raise the problems of the apple growers before the competent authorities.
Bragta accused the present state government for unconcerned towards the problems of apple growers. He said that that the Congress had promised to increase import duty apple from 50 to 150 per cent, but after getting mandate it had reduced it to zero. He said that now 40 countries are importing their apple in India and thus making it impossible for the growers of Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand to compete with foreign apples.
