UTTARAKHAND: Surrounded by snow-clad mountains, pine forests, and gorgeous flora and fauna, Harsil village, a hill station in Uttarkashi district, is among those lesser-known places in Uttarakhand which make it worth visiting at least once. There is one more thing that gave the hamlet a new recognition — for its own ‘Harsil apple’, and the credit goes to its district magistrate Ashish Chauhan for making it a brand. The officer took the initiative to start ‘Harsil Apple Festival’ in 2018 that soon became a hit among local apple farmers as well as those from Himachal Pradesh and Kashmir.
The festival, which is a balanced amalgamation of diverse activities, has helped attract investors, businessmen and enthusiasts not only from India but also various parts of the world. The two-day festival includes an apple exhibition, heritage village walk, heritage exhibition, Ganga arti, farmer’s stalls and cultural events. “The motive was to brand and market the second to none varieties which would help internationalize the apple produce of the area like other varieties of Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.
Senior state government officials and the chief minister had supported the initiative along with the locals,” says Chauhan, a 2012-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer. The brand Harsil apple has lifted thousands of lives out of poverty in the district and the state, with farmers using advanced scientific methods for cultivation coupled with marketing opportunities provided by the district administration.
Farmers said since the initiative taken by the district magistrate, they have been getting 3-4 times prices on the sale of their products.
“Earlier, we used to sell our apple for around `50 per kg. Now we get `100-200 per kg depending on the quality of our produce. Now, we get special attention of the district administration and the government. They provide us helps related to the cultivation of apples such as fertilizers, training, equipment and other ingredients for enhancing our products and its quality,” Akash Chauhan, a farmer from Kiradu village in the district, says. He owns about 4-acres of orchards which produce around 5,000-6,000 boxes of apples with each is sold for `1,500-2,000.
“Earlier, the same box with 10 kg of apples would be sold for `500,” the farmer says. Surveer Singh, another farmer from Balawat village, says: “The efforts of the DM made us global. Earlier, we were struggling with no vision and hope to push our limits. The DM has brought experts from across the country with knowledge of farming with advanced techniques.” Today, a total of 12,102 farmers cultivate apple crops in 9,225.14 hectares area. According to the official records, the revenue generated by apple farming in the financial year 2019-20 was around Rs 1.2 crore which is 30% more than the financial year 2017-18 when the total revenue stood only at `92.8 lakh.
Posted as a district magistrate for the first time, Ashish Chauhan is known as a fearless and adventure-loving officer among his subordinates. Apart from his usual office work, he takes out time for trekking and identifying new peaks in the region.Apple was introduced in the quaint hill station Harsil, also known as ‘Mini Switzerland of India’, by a British settler Fredrick Wilson.Wilson, who eventually settled in the place, had married a local woman and had three children. He was also popularly known as ‘Pahadi Wilson’.