Zia Darakshan
Srinagar, March 03: Food crisis in the Kashmir valley has belied tall claims of the state government that sufficient stock of essential commodities was available here. The valley continues to suffer with acute shortage of essentials from last one month.
Even as with the arrival of essentials on Thursday the officials had declared that valley was out of crisis and there was a sufficient stock of supplies available in the market,the general public has been going from pillar to post for want of essential commodities. The present crisis is two-fold. First, the vegetables and other food items are out of stock in most of the market places. Second, whatever little is available in the market, it’s being sold at spine breaking prices and that too under the nose of the authorities. This has left the common people in the lurch.
Deputy Commissioner (DC) Srinagar, Dr. Shahid Choudhary told this INS correspondent on Friday had said that a fleet of over 1000 oil tankers, including trucks loaded with essentials had arrived Kashmir till Thursday morning, therefore putting an end to the shortage of essentials especially fuel, LPG and Diesel. In this backdrop, he had stated there would be no crisis of essential commodities now onwards.
The claims proved hoax as the national highway on Friday led to an acute shortage of essentials. By Saturday evening all the petrol pumps ran dry, the markets wore deserted look as the shopkeepers were left with no stock of essentials. The shortage of supplies has already led to the price hike in the essentials like chicken ,mutton and vegetables .
While talking to INS, a group of consumers in a busy market place said, “What happened to the administration claim that sufficient supplies are available to suffice the valley need to sustain for at least 15 days more. One can understand the miscalculations on the part of our administration ,leave alone 15 days.We could not even sustain for more than a day.”
“Our administration seriously needs to get out of the cozy offices and take stock of the situation at ground level,” they said.
Precisely, while talking to cross section of people, this correspondent could see anger brewing up in them against the government’s ‘inefficiency’ which has pushed the valley into acute food crisis.
