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| Failure to ensure supplies and failure to control prices | | Valley woes | | Early Times Report
srinagar, Jan 20: More than 2500 vehicles are still stranded on the Jammu-Srinagar road although the authorities said over 180 of these had crossed the Jawahar Tunnel towards the Valley till 5 pm. today. It should not be difficult for anyone to guess the number of days it would take 2500 vehicles to reach their destination if the pace of vehicular traffic on the highway remains like this.
The Jammu-Srinagar road has remained closed for the last many days because of heavy snowfall and given the topography of the areas through which the road passes it is always to be expected that the highway cannot be kept open round the year because of the vagaries of weather.
It is definitely not a situation where any state administration should be caught unawares by the closure of the highway during the winter months. Closure of the highway is a reality with which the people of the Valley have to live, but the State government must prepare well in advance to ensure that life does not become a misery for the people because of shortages of supplies of essential commodities in the Valley.
After the myth of sufficient supplies maintained in the Valley was exploded by the closure of the highway, the first casualty became the availability of cooking gas. The army had to come to the rescue of the civil administration by giving 1000 LPG gas cylinders to the oil companies for distribution among the consumers. The failure of the civil administration to rise up to the emergency created by the recent snowfall has only exposed the inherent weakness of the State government which has decided to keep the people happy by sending in a team of ministers who are visiting the Valley presently. The ministers cannot mitigate the sufferings of the people on account of the non-availability of essential commodities like LPG, kerosene oil, sugar, pulses, milk, eggs, mutton and poultry.
The State government could at least ensure that whatever the stock position of the essential supplies in the Valley these remained available to the people at the prices fixed by the CAPD. In this crucial sphere of governance also the state administration has failed bitterly. Not only have hoarders taken the stocks off from their shelves, they have started selling these in the black market. From LPG to sugar through kerosene oil, pulses, eggs, mutton and poultry everything is being sold in the black market. Heavy snowfall is nothing new for the people of the Valley, but the failure of the State government to maintain sufficient stocks of essential commodities in the Valley and to control their prices is something the people are experiencing with renewed misery this winter.
It must be yet another bad news for the people given the helplessness of the State government that the weather office has forecast another snowfall in the Valley during the coming days. |
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