Even as the volume of cross-LoC trade has recorded significant improvement, the poor infrastructure and security mechanism continue to play spoilsport.
According to sources, the LoC trade, which is being conducted through barter system, has recorded Rs 3,091.14 crore worth import and Rs 3,411.50 crore export since its inception. However, the successive governments, according to the traders associated with this trade, have failed to bring about improvement in the infrastructure.
The previous government had announced several proposals to strengthen the trade between the two divided parts of Kashmir, “however, these proposals have not been transformed into action,” the traders said.
The former minister for industries during Mehbooba Mufti led government had informed the state assembly during its January session that a proposal of seven additional trade routes and two meeting points across the line of control in J&K, and the international border in Jammu, besides inclusion of 21 more items in the existing trade list, had been taken up with the central government.
The minister had informed the assembly that government of India had been urged to take up these proposals with the Pakistan government.
“These announcements had given us the hope that the government was serious about this trade, which was billed as an important confidence building measure for Kashmir. However, since announcement of these proposals nothing has been done so far,” said Fayaz Ahmad, anLoC trader. The local authorities acknowledged that the existing facilities need to be upgraded at the trade facilitation centres at the earliest.
“We need to have digital system, modern weighing machines and a cold storage immediately, besides some new godowns. These measures will make the process faster and hassle free,” said an official associated with the LoC trade.
He said the security mechanism too needed to be upgraded. “The x-ray facility for checking the imported goods at the trade facilitation centre is extremely important. Though authorities as well the security agencies had recommended for this facility several times in the past, but till date nothing has been done,” the officials at Uri said.
India and Pakistan agreed to start LoC trade in 2004, when the late chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed led PDP-Congress was ruling in Jammu and Kashmir. However, the CBM was delayed till 2008, when massive peaceful protests erupted across Kashmir Valley, in the wake of the controversial land transfer to Amarnath Shrine Board.