Srinagar, Jan 18: The All Kashmir Wholesale Mutton Dealers Association has hailed the induction of Chowdhary Muhammad Ramzan as Minister for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution, while urging the government to stop ‘illegal’ mutton supply to Kashmir.
“We are hopeful that the minister will act tough against mafia in this sector which is behind effecting arbitrary hikes of mutton prices every now and then by illegally bringing mutton to Kashmir,” said Mehraj Ganie, President of the association.
Ganie said that a huge quantity of mutton was being brought to Kashmir “illegally” by people who were not actually the licence holders.
He also blamed some “inactive” license holders who according to him were ‘letting out’ their licences to people not related to this field to procure sheep from outside the state.
“It is disgusting that certain licence holders have been allowing their licences to be used against consideration by people not related to this trade,” he said.
 He said the association had submitted some proposals to the government so that this practice is checked and “genuine” dealers “saved”.
 He said besides hitting the interests of the common consumers, the “illegal supply” of sheep to the Valley had affected the “genuine” and “real” mutton dealers here.
 “We have time and again raised this issue with the government, yet no heed has been given to our pleas. Now we have high expectation with the new Minister and hope he will look into our grievances and redress them,” Ganie said.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 18 Jan 2013 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 18 Jan 2013 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 19 Jan 2013 00:00:00 IST