A small village, but now the largest hub for melons in country

Mandi of a small village in Shahkot sub-division of the district has become biggest mandi of melons in the country from where the fruit is being supplied to seven states of

Interestingly operations in the mandi started only five years back and every year the business here is growing multifold. With bumper crop of the fruit this year only melons are visible all around in the mandi and from farmers to Arhatiyas to workers, everybody is happy with traders from faraway places UP, J&K, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttrakhand and Punjab trickling down to fetch the fruit to mandis of their respective areas.

 

“Earlier we were going to Mandis of Jalandhar. Kapurthala and Phagwara or some would sell their produce to traders on road here, which was leading to accidents, and we started working in the Mandi of the village in 2005,” said Gurmail Singh Dhadda of Roopewali

“Kapurthala is having around 5000 acres of land under melon cultivation and area was increasing every year,” said Sukhdip Singh, Horticulture Officer Kapurthala while revealing that in normal course if the crop was not hit by any disease or adverse climatic condition the produce reached to around 300 quintals per acre. Jalandhar district had over 2000 acres under melon, said Satbir Singh Dy Director Horticulture.

“Roopewali has become biggest Mandi in the country and one of the biggest in

Experts estimate that these four Tehsils of the two districts were producing over 20 lakh quintal of the fruit.

Guriqbal Singh, Block Samiti member and resident of the village, said that he was having 30 crores of his land under melon cultivation. “We are getting better pricing than what we were getting in other Mandis and are also saving on the transportation cost and of course wit a lot of comfort of selling the produce in our village,” he said.

“I started melon cultivation four years back after this Mandi developed,” said Mangal Singh a small farmer of village Waada Jagir while selling his produce in the Mandi. Sarfraz, a trader from

Dhadda said that crop was reaching in this Mandi from the villages of four Tehsils – Shahkot, Nakodar, Kapurthala and Sultanpur Lodhi of two districts Jalandhar and Kapurthala.