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| Fanfare over, cross LoC trade dying a slow death | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Dec 26: The trans LoC trade and travel which were started as huge CBMs between India and Pakistan are dying a slow death as officials and traders connected with the much hyped exercise seem to have developed cold feet.
The recent meeting between the traders and officials from across the LoC at Chakan-da-Bagh has ended without any result as officials of the two sides reportedly remained adamant at their positions. While the PoK officials are reported to have laid emphasis on increasing the number and frequency of cross LoC movement of passengers, the officials of the Central and State Governments have said the same can only be decided by New Delhi and Islamabad at a diplomatic level.
Traders from both the sides routing their goods through Chakan da Bagh and Salamabad Trade Facilitation Centres have accused that instead of being a trade in goods produced on the two sides of the LoC, the trans LoC trade has finally become a trade between Lahore and Amritsar. The cross LoC passage for the goods from Lahore and Amritsar has come handy since no custom or export duty is charged on the cross LoC trade.
Many traders in Valley and the Jammu region have alleged that the big trading firms in Lahore and Amritsar have in fact created forwarding agents in Poonch and in Baramulla districts in the shape of some traders who actually forward goods from Amritsar and Lahore labeling them as goods produced in the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
The other major demand of the traders has been that the trading between the two sides is still be carried on as a medieval trade on barter system in the absence of any banking facility for the traders. A truck of pulses have often to be balanced and scored off with a truck of fruits and vice versa. This medieval practice of commerce has also given rise to serious apprehensions among the security agencies that support to militancy from across the borders cannot be ruled out in the absence of a transparent, auditable accounting procedure.
The demand for increase in the trade list agreed between the two sides has also not been met so far although the cross LoC trade has been going on for more than five years now. |
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