HimVani

Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh government has decided to increase the support price of procurement of apple, mango and citrus fruits by 50 paise, per kg, Horticulture Minister, Singhi Ram said, here.

The prices have been raised under the Market Intervention Scheme for 2007. Henceforth, the procurement price for apple would be Rs 4.75 per kg as compared to Rs 4.25 per kg earlier. Similarly the price for mango seedling has been fixed at Rs 4.08 per kg and mango grafted would now be procured at Rs 4.75 per kg.

For citrus fruits like Kinnow/Malta/Sangtra grade ‘B’, the price has been raised to Rs 5.35 per kg from Rs 4.85 per kg. For Kinnow/Malta/Sangtra grade ‘C’, the new procurement price has been fixed at Rs 4.75 per kg. Similarly, for Galgal (all grades) the price has been fixed at Rs 3.65 per kg.

According to Ram, the decision would put an additional burden of approximately Rs 2.5 crore on the state exchequer.