STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Chamber of Traders Federation (CTF) on Thursday discussed threadbare the present state of morass prevailing in the State.
In a meeting held under the chairmanship of CTF President Neeraj Anand wherein all the office bearers and prominent members expressed anguish at the continuous mayhem in Valley, loss of lives, diabolical plans of separatist leaders and their masters engaged in manipulations from across the border. The meeting also showed its dissatisfaction on the administrative chaos in the Valley.
Anand lamented that while political parties of different hues become studiedly mute on such occasions, and the media is held captive by circumstantial compulsions, the responsibility to improve situation is best left to the good offices of civil society and more importantly the trading community, and thankfully they have risen to the occasion and responded well by doing their best to maintain peace and communal harmony in the region.
Invoking sensibilities of the youth under pressure in the Valley and sensitivities of the Government functionaries both at the State and Centre, Anand called upon them to spare no efforts in bringing normalcy in Kashmir-at the earliest.
“Needless to say, our state is lagging in the industrialization and depends largely on pilgrimage tourism destinations like Mata Vaishno Devi Ji, Budha Amarnath Ji, Machail Mata Ji and Shiv Khori Shrine at this time of the year. Traders, Truckers, Taxi operators, Hoteliers, Ponywallahs, Labourers and almost everyone engaged in self employment eagerly look forward to the season of 2 to 3 months for their livelihood but alas their hopes have been dashed by the sinister designs of inimical elements planning disturbances in the Valley”, the meeting stated.
It anticipated that the regular feature of disturbing Amarnath Yatra for the last few seasons shall end in the near future.
“The Jammu traders are suffering huge losses due to non transaction with the valley traders. Narwal Fruit Mandi traders dealing in perishable items like Bananas / vegetables have suffered heavy losses running into crores. This loss is likely to go up even further if the situation does not improve soon. Similarly payments coming from the valley to dealers of Motor Vehicles and essential commodities have totally stopped due to closure of Banks in Kashmir and snapping of Internet services in the state and we can hardly expect any improvement in the next few days”, the meeting rued.
Being the representative body of Traders of Jammu Province, the CTF members appealed to Finance Minister to defer the VAT Tax payment and VAT tax returns of 1st quarter and club it with the 2nd quarter.
Kailash Nath Nagar, Dinesh Gupta, Attar Singh, Chander Gulati, Balwinder Singh, Vinay Gupta and Tushar Mahajan were also present.