Jammu, May 9:  The losses in the last night’s devastating fire at biggest fruit and vegetable market of the region at Narwal have been assessed to be of the tune of Rs 3 crore.
The traders put the preliminary assessment of loss of goods and property at Rs 3 crore, which they said could go up when the exact evaluation was done.
Sources said that about a dozen whole sale traders were affected by the fire that started from a shed stocked with about 25 truck loads of merchandise dumped for cross LoC exchange.
“Goods about 20-25 loads of trucks were laying under the shed included red chilly, walnut, onion, cardamom, dry dates and coconut”, sources said.
 They said that these goods were to be dispatched for cross LOC trade at Chaka Da Bagh in Poonch district but due to strike of traders these were laying at the Vegetable Market   for the last three days.
It is pertinent to mention here that minister for Health, Horticulture and floriculture, Sham Lal Sharma who visited the site of  incident, on the compensation demand of the traders,   directed the district administration Jammu to make the assessment of the losses.
Talking to Greater Kashmir president Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) Jammu, YV Sharma said “It was a very tragic incident for the whole trader community involving loss of goods and property worth crores of rupees. It is difficult to assess the exact loss. However the government has issued directions to the district administration for an early assessment of the exact losses”
He further informed that about 8-9 traders have been affected by the fire incident.  “We urged the Minister for Health and Horticulture Sham Lal Sharma, who visited the spot today, to give compensation to the affected traders so that they can start with a new. The minister directed the District Development Commissioner Jammu and Director Horticulture to complete the loss evaluation at the earliest. Chamber has also demanded a Fire Service Station near the Vegetable Market, CCTVs for surveillance and a tube well within the market as measures to avoid such incidents in future” JCCI president said while batting for adequate compensation to the affected traders.
The fire incident took place last night around 9.30 pm in which a number of shops and sheds were damaged  .  According to police, property and goods worth more than Rs. 3 Cr were gutted in the fire .However no injury or casualty was reported in the incident.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 9 May 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 9 May 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 IST