Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) has formed a committee to assess the losses faced by the various business segments due to “economic slump” and fragile situation in 2018.
The sector loss assessment would be presented to the advisor to governor KK Sharma during the upcoming pre-budget meeting on December 9 in Srinagar.
KCCI junior vice-president AM Mir, who is heading the committee, told Greater Kashmir that the sub-committees of chamber will make efforts to consolidate amount of losses suffered by various sectors and submit it with the administration during forthcoming pre-budget meetings to be held in Srinagar on December 9. “It is unfortunate that government has not been serious to make the loss assessment, which our trade and industry has suffered. We are trying to come up with the loss assessment soon so that we can submit it during the pre-budget meeting with the government,” said Mir.
Mir said several sector-wise committees of KCCI have been deputed to make loss assessments of their particular sectors which will be consolidated by the main assessment committee. “There is a need to quantify losses in various sectors especially tourism, horticulture, handicrafts and general trade since we have been working in quite unfavourable conditions. We need to atleast have some data available to us before we seek sops and incentives from the administration in this year’s state budget. We will take help of banks, trade associations to form the data,” Mir said.
However, he did not explain the methodology KCCI is going to use for making the assessments.
Mir said horticulture has been the worst-hit sectors this year due to inclement weather adding that Horticulture Department is yet to announce the losses suffered by apple growers. “The horticulture department first said the loss assessment will be made in 10 days but we are yet to hear from their side,” said Mir. Mir said although KCCI had made a rough loss assessment of Rs 500 crore suffered by the apple growers due to the untimely snow in November but the chamber will revise that figure, he said.
According to the 2016 Economic Survey, Jammu and Kashmir suffered losses to the tune of over Rs 16,000 crore during the five-month long unrest in the Valley due to complete halt of economic activity.
Meanwhile, KCCI has extended its support to the Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industry with regard to the complaints of harassment of traders, industrialists and LOC Traders. A statement issued by KCCI here said the government must take steps for ensuring the participation of the JCCI in the pre-budget discussions saying without the Jammu chamber the meetings would become an “exercise in futility”.