Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, June 16: A delegation of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, led by its President Sheikh Ashiq Ahmad held an interaction with Baseer A Khan, Advisor to Lt Governor, J&K at the Civil Secretariat and apprised him about the difficulties being faced by the business community.
Representatives of the Automobile Dealers Association, Hotels and Houseboat Owners also participated in the meeting and thanked the Advisor for the staggered opening of the business establishments in Kashmir. They also urged for further opening up of the transport sector which had been worst hit. The Advisor said that partial opening up of transport would be shortly incremented.
Sheikh Ashiq Ahmad apprised the Advisor about the unique 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. He suggested that 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.
The Advisor, while suggesting that the Lower Munda/Qazigund Point would be better suited for such transfers, said that the proposal would be examined and necessary directions would be issued shortly.
Wahid Malik, President KHAROF, informed the Advisor about the pending payments of Hotels taken over for COVID operations. The Advisor informed the delegation that payments in this regard had already been released to the District Disaster Management Authority. He took up the issue with the Chairman, DDMA and asked for expediting the fixation of rent and releasing of payments towards the local Hotel industry. Mr Wahid also urged for waiver of demand charges and reduction of tariff for the hotel industry.
Manzoor Pakhtoon, representing the tourism industry, apprised the Advisor about the difficult situation the houseboat owners were undergoing due to the refusal to renew licences of the houseboats and also due to the new Houseboat Policy announced. He stated that the Policy had banned construction of new houseboats and had also issued stringent conditions for registration of the existing houseboats.
The Advisor said that the issue would be examined in detail he would convene a meeting with the KCC&I and the concerned stakeholders within this week to listen to their grievances and settle their issues.
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