PLIGHT OF TRANSPORTERS
The Central government and UT administration have failed to intervene in order to save thousands of families in Jammu and Kashmir connected with transport trade. Post August 5, last year’s clampdown, the transporter suffered as the government did not allow the normal life to resume for months and it resulted in a lot of hardships for the transporters.
Recently the transporters operating Jammu and Ladakh services from Srinagar demanded authorities to allow them to resume their services and said that they will follow the guidelines in letter and spirit.
They have the reasons to come on streets as the authorities are only maintaining silence and not addressing their grievances. Transporters want to resume their services in order to survive along with their families and the administration is not responsive to facilitate them to earn their livelihood.
Transporters have been facing immense hardships since they have not been allowed to resume their business, even as the administration has started easing the life after weeks of lockdown due to coronavirus. Transporters have said that they have been ignored by the authorities and have been without any business from the past 11 months. They have described the attitude of the authorities as callous and said that they were being pushed to poverty by the government.
Most of them have failed to pay back their monthly installments to the banks and financial institutions in the past 11 months first due to government clampdown for months since August 5, last year and then week’s long shutdown imposed by the government to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
