Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Dec 18: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said today that his Government has taken up the matter with Government of India for converting cross-LoC trade on Poonch-Rawlakote and Uri-Muzaffarabad routes from barter system to currency based and allowing trade on majority of items barring few goods, which can be brought on negative list.
He said the State Government was pursuing the matter for taking up conversion of Mughal Road into second National Highway from Rajouri to Srinagar on the lines of Jammu-Srinagar National Highway and the project could become a reality if the UPA Government was voted back to power at the Centre.
Omar disclosed that his Government has written to the Centre for converting barter trade on both Poonch-Rawlakote and Uri-Muzaffarabad routes into money transaction trade.
“We have also written to the Centre for preparing negative list of five to six items, which the Government of India didn’t want to be traded on the cross-LoC routes and declared rest of the items as positive lists, which can be exchanged by traders of the two sides on the LoC,’’ he said.
He added that the State Government has also backed the demand for opening up various channels of communication for traders of this side.
Presently, the trade on both Uri-Muzaffarabad route in the Kashmir Valley and Poonch-Rawlakote route in Jammu region was being conducted on barter system. The traders had since long been demanding that it should be converted from barter system to money based trade so that accurate value of import-exports can be assessed and traders make payments to each other in case. The traders were of the view that barter system of trade sometimes causes financial losses to the traders as they had to export items to equal amount of the goods imported by them.
Omar told a public meeting at Surankote in Poonch district today that his Government also wanted the system of trade on 21 items only to be done away with.
“We want that there should be no positive list of 21 items, which only can be traded on cross-LoC routes. Instead, we have asked for preparing a list of five to six ‘negative items’, which the Union of India didn’t want to be trader from these two routes. Rest all the items should be allowed for import-exports on the two routes,’’ the Chief Minister said.
Similarly, he said, “we have also asked the Centre to open up communication channels for the traders of this side so that they can easily speak to their counterparts in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) and discuss the tradable items.
While the traders of PoK can call their counterparts on this side from telephones, the traders of this side didn’t have such facility due to bar on ISD calls from Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan.
Expressing confidence that the Government of India would concede the demands, Omar said the State Government has been pursuing them (the demands) with the Centre to encourage the cross-LoC trade on Poonch-Rawlakote and Uri-Muzaffarabad routes. It may be mentioned here that the trade has come down to a great extent from the previous years in view of restrictions in items of import-exports and delay in use of currency for the trade by both the sides.
The Government of India and Pakistan controlled the cross-LoC trade. A decision on money system instead of barter system and number of items to be traded on the LoC is taken by the two Governments.
Meanwhile, Omar also announced that the State Government has proposed National Highway status for Mughal Road, which connected Rajouri to Shopian via Poonch and then Srinagar.
“We have proposed Mughal Road as second National Highway after Jammu-Srinagar,’’ he said but added that since it was a time consuming decision and very few days were left for imposition of Election Commission’s Model Code of Conduct for Lok Sabha elections, the UPA Government was required to be back in power for implementation of the decision.
He said according National Highway status to Mughal Road would go a long way in development of the areas in Rajouri, Poonch, Shopian etc.