Dharali's famed apple orchards, its economic lifeline, wiped off from slopes

Time of India

3 days ago

Dehradun: These are among the most important weeks for Dharali's economy and the livelihood of its 900-odd residents — the brief apple harvest season — when the air carries the faint scent of ripe fruit and cold, fresh mountain water.
Instead, the orchards that have anchored the village for generations lie buried beneath as much as 30 feet of debris after the Aug 5 flash flood tore through the settlement, leaving behind a silence broken only by the scrape of shovels and the rumble of repair machinery on half-cleared roads.
For generations, Dharali's people have relied on apple farming, but many also run homestays, shops and hotels, all now submerged or reduced to rubble.
Fields of rajma, broccoli, cauliflower and capsicum — crops grown to supplement orchard income — have vanished under a thick layer of silt. In some places, only the tips of orchard fences and the corners of rooftops remain visible. By the time the water receded, the terraced rows of apple trees in as many as 50 orchards had been erased from the landscape, leaving their owners with only a fraction of the crop and no way to move it to market.
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With the orchards gone, even the tools to save what remains have disappeared. The village's only pesticide and seed shop, run by Sachin Panwar, has been washed away. "About 4.5 hectares of orchards and farmland are destroyed, erasing apple produce worth Rs 70 to 80 lakh," he says. Inside the gutted shop, metal shelves are twisted, and packets of seeds lie scattered in the mud. With his shop gone, no pesticides remain to treat the few surviving trees.
Among those worst hit is Umesh Panwar, a former block development committee member whose orchard, house, 15-room hotel and two mobile towers on his property were swept away. He was in Uttarkashi with his family when the flood struck. "I have nothing to live on and nothing to feed my family. We have to start our lives from scratch. The only satisfaction is that my family is safe," he tells TOI, standing on a patch of bare earth where his orchard once grew.
Uttarkashi, the state's largest apple-producing district, has orchards stretching across more than 1,100 hectares, and in this village alone, apple trees had stood for four and five decades. Mahavir Singh, another planter, says between 40 and 50 orchards have simply disappeared. "There was a cottage in the middle of my orchard which no longer exists. Its caretaker is missing," he says, adding that harvesting would have continued into next month, but without road access, the next challenge is moving any salvaged produce to buyers before it becomes worthless.
Fallen apples, he says, are already rotting in the debris.
Manoj Rana, also an orchard owner, says farmers had received large orders for Rakshabandhan but could not fulfil them. He urged the authorities to announce a minimum support price and buy up whatever can be harvested. "Neighbouring villages like Mukhaba, Harsil, Bagori, Jhala, Jaspur, Burali and Sukki have also lost connectivity. Roads are being repaired for passenger vehicles, but it will take time before trucks can carry our produce," he adds.
Rana recalls that after the 2013 Kedarnath disaster, Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam was appointed the nodal procurement agency and says the same approach is needed now. District horticulture officer Dr Rajnish Singh confirms that around 4.5 hectares of apple orchards are lost and officials are assessing the damage to determine compensation.
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