A delegation of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry led by its President Sheikh Ashiq Ahmad interacted with Baseer A Khan, Advisor to Lt Governor at the Civil Secretariat here.
According to a statement, the representatives of the Automobile Dealers Association, Hotels and Houseboat Owners also participated in the meeting.
The statement said Sheikh Ashiq apprised the Advisor about the difficulties faced by this sector due to height constraints of tunnels along the Jammu-Srinagar Highway which prevented Trailer Trucks from delivering vehicles to Kashmir.
“Vehicles have to be offloaded at Jammu only. The imposition of COVID related protocols had drastically reduced the number of vehicles that could be transferred to Srinagar. This has resulted in huge slock piling of new vehicles at Jammu.
“It also caused revenue losses to the Government by way of reduction in the number of registrations. It was suggested thai if the Banihal checkpoint is designated as a Transit Point for transfer of vehicle, the dealers could deploy separate set of drivers for handing over vehicles at such transit points after proper sanitization.”
Wahid Malik, President, KIIAROF informed the advisor about pending payments of hotels taken over for COVID operations.
Manzoor Pakhloon, representing the tourism industry, apprised the Advisor about the difficult situation of the houseboat owners due to the refusal to renew licences of the houseboats.