Uttarakhand floriculturists suffer heavy losses due to coronavirus lockdown and bad weather

Dehradun (Uttarakhand) [India], May 16 : The floriculture sector in Uttarakhand sector has suffered a loss of around Rs 250 crore owing to bad weather, said state Agriculture Minister Subodh Uniyal on Saturday.
"People from the floriculture sector have submitted their issues. According to market value, a loss of Rs 250 crores has occurred due to bad weather. Their proposal has been sent to the Disaster Management Department. The process of compensating them is underway," said Uniyal.
The Dehradun-based floriculturists have also claimed that the coronavirus-induced lockdown too has affected the sector severely.
"There are various varieties of plants here. I could not find labourers then bad weather destroyed the plants. Only 20 per cent of the total produce is left now, earlier there used to be around 50 labourers and now we cannot find even one. Sometimes hailstorm destroyed the harvest. Lockdown and bad weather both played a role," said Haragovind Singh, Supervisor of Polyhouse.
Gyanendra Pal Singh, another floriculturist said," The lockdown has destroyed the farmers in a way because we do not have labour, we do not have customers for our produce either. We were to participate in a flower show at Raj Bhawan, and the show was cancelled due to lockdown. The flower show was one such occasion where we used to get earn in lakhs."
Meanwhile, the country continues to remain under lockdown imposed to check the spread of coronavirus.