What is the administration doing?
The Jammu-Srinagar national highway has been behaving quite badly during the past two weeks. During this time of the year this in nothing unusual as the ill maintained road has been witnessing frequent closures during the months of January, February and March every year.
But what has shocked the people, especially living in Kashmir valley is the obnoxious planning the civil administration has been resorting to. The highway has been witnessing closure since the last Tuesday and just after a closure of three days the fuel and LPG supply in the valley has exhausted.
The closure of the arterial Highway has led to depletion of fuel stocks in Kashmir, forcing the authorities to direct fuel pumps to provide only three litres petrol per vehicle per day.
According to an order issued by Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, Baseer Ahmad Khan, the fuel stations have also been directed not to provide more than 10 litres of diesel per commercial vehicle per day.
Though the order is not being implemented and followed, but the situation reflects the failure of the administration to an extent that the stocks in the valley had depleted to such a level that supplies could not suffice for three days.
What is more shocking is that the oil companies have been directed to restrict supply of petrol and diesel to fuel pumps to 1000 litres per day per station. They have also been told to reserve separate quota for government vehicles, ambulances, water tankers and snow clearance machines.
The situation is so alarming that LPG supply has almost been stopped to even households during the past few days now. Locals have been alleging and calling up newspaper offices that despite bookings LPG dealers are not supplying the required gas cylinders to them.
The appalling situation apart, the alarm set-in by the government itself has meant that hoarding is at its peak in the valley as of now. Just yesterday meat which is officially to be sold to a consumer at Rupees 450 a kilogram was sold at around 600 Rupees a kilo. Similarly, rates of chicken were fixed at Rs 170 a kilogram as compared to 115 Rupees fixed by the government.
Same is the case with the sale of vegetables and fruits. The administration has failed miserably on all fronts and no effort is being made to bring in some sanity in the markets where a common man is being looted ruthlessly.
As for the administration the babus are busy chatting with each other through video conferencing and assuring each other that all is well and measures are being taken to provide all sort of relief to the hapless people.
If at all the governor’s administration is keen on easing out the worries of the common man, it should immediately try to fix responsibility on those officers who are responsible for the mess that has been created owing to the bad weather conditions.
The governor should immediately set up an inquiry committee so that criminal negligence’s like stocking of fuel and other essentials can be fixed and officers who had misled the governor on the stock position in the valley be punished severely.
KV Network
