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| Is LoC trade over? | | No clue about Rs 35 lakh goods | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Nov 10: Exactly three months back, the traders of Kashmir Valley backed by the separatists refused to heed all persuasions and lead a symbolic march with their goods, farm produce and fruits to Muzaffarabad thus triggering a never ending tension in Kashmir which has resulted in killings of over five dozen persons. 90 days down the line, after getting clueless about the Rs 35 lakh consignments sent across LoC the traders have nearly called off the Muzaffarabad obsession.
Alleging economic blockade due to Amarnath land row agitation in Jammu, the Valley based traders had declared to have business ties with the Pakistan administered Kashmir. Even though the state and central government made all convincing efforts to buy their goods and fruits from the Mandis and asked them to wait for formal opening of the trans-LoC route but they did not honour any request and led a march to Muzaffarabad and since then tension has not been dying in the Valley.
Finally the trans-LoC trade took off with an international hype and local jubilations on October 21 but within 20 days, the Kashmiri traders have now turned to the state and central governments for intervention as they have no clue about the consignments sent across the Line of Control. The first obvious cropper has hit the trans-LoC trade for much obvious reasons –no communication, no banking facilities, no idea about markets and no idea about prevailing prices and their conversion.
The LoC trade was initiated in such a pressing urgency that the ground realties were not taken into account. While trade on Poonch-Rawalakote could never take off, except exchange of gifts, right from the day one, the mood of Kashmiri traders suggests that nothing practical is in sight even on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad route.
Fruit growers and traders in the Kashmir Valley today refused to send their consignments across the Line of Control due to lack of communication, banking arrangements and contact with traders across the border.
'We have no knowledge about what happened to the 7,000 boxes of fruit we have already sent to Muzaffarabad since the LoC trade began Oct 21,' Farooq Ahmad Malik, president of the Valley's fruit buyers' association, said here Monday. The LoC divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
'The fruit consignments amount to Rs.3.5 million (Rs.35 lakh) and we don't even know whether these have been sold at all or not,' Malik said. The traders have decided not to resume the cross-LoC trade unless the government here allows a delegation of fruit traders to visit Muzaffarabad and work out modalities with their counterparts there.
The traders and growers also demanded the government allow telephone facilities between the Valley and Pakistan administered Kashmir. 'At the moment, we only have access to traders in Muzaffarabad through the Internet, but this facility is not available to everyone. 'Trade without a telephone link is unimaginable anywhere in the world today,' said Malik.
Telephone links between the two sides have been jammed by authorities here to obstruct communication channels of separatist guerrillas across the LoC.
Bridging a six-decade divide, India and Pakistan resumed trade across the LoC Oct 21 with trucks loaded with good like spices, apples, walnuts and carpets rolling across the de-facto border from both sides.
The cross-LoC trade on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawlakote routes began for the first time since 1948, when commercial ties snapped following the India-Pakistan war a year after the bloody partition of the subcontinent. |
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