In a timely move, the Tirupati Urban Development Authority (TUDA) procured 2,500 tonnes of fruits from farmers and distributed them among the general public in Tirupati on Wednesday.

The decision was hailed as a win-win move for both the farmers who were unable to sell their produce due to the lockdown, and for the public.

Farmers in the district were disillusioned as tonnes of harvested fruits were lying idle, waiting for buyers. TUDA’s decision came as a huge relief for them.

TUDA chairman and government whip Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy on Wednesday embarked on the task of procuring the large consignment of fruits from farmers for distribution among 1.60 lakh households in Chandragiri constituency. The agricultural marketyard in Tirupati was agog on Wednesday, when loads of sweet lime, water melon, bananas, musk melon and papaya were loaded on trucks and dispatched to various mandals in the Assembly segment.

“Every household will get fourteen kilograms of fruits as ‘immunity boosters’ to guard against COVID-19,” Dr. Bhaskar Reddy said. He had already distributed masks, sanitisers, essentials, 10 kg of vegetables, ten eggs and and 15 Vitamin C tablets to each household, apart from making thermal scanners, PPE kits, 70,000 kg of bleaching powder available for the safety of field staff. The entire stock would be distributed by maintaining social distancing norms, he said.

Much before the standing crops showed symptoms of withering and the farmers turning restive over non-availability of transport due to the lockdown, the entire stock was procured from orchards and vegetable growers in the district. “This step of meeting demand and supply has certainly benefited both the seller and buyer,” he observed.