Srinagar, Sept. 16 -- The air inside Sopore fruit mandi is heavy, not with the usual chatter of auctioneers or the sweet smell of fresh harvest, but with silence and the stench of ripening apples left too long in the sun. Crates are stacked like barricades, truck drivers nap on their bumpers, and growers sit cross-legged on empty wooden boxes, staring at their unsold produce.

"This place should be roaring by now," said Faisal War, who manages transport at the mandi. "Instead, it feels like a graveyard. Our apples are dying a slow death here."

Freight charges for apple consignments have tripled from rs 100 to over rs 350 per box, as transporters divert trucks through the longer, hilly Mughal Road. Thousands of boxes are still lying in ...