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Kashmir apples rot on the roads as diesel-unhappy truckers strike work

Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar

The Kashmiri apple growers are a worried lot. Over 300 trucks carrying the famous Kashmiri apple boxes are stranded enroute in view of the strike called by the truck operators over the recent hike in diesel prices.

According to Ghulam Rasool, a fruit merchant in Srinagar, the trucks carrying tons of fresh apples could not reach New Delhi in view of the strike. "The agitating truck drivers have stopped the trucks enroute and the fruit is rotting".

He said that after this year's severe drought which resulted in great loss to the growers, the strike is a setback for the fruit industry which, alongwith tourism, is the backbone of the local economy. Tourism suffered badly in view of the Kargil conflict.

Rasool says that if the strike does not end quickly, the rotten fruit will have to be destroyed. Tonnes of fruit packed in wooden boxes awaits early transportation to Delhi and other cities in the country.

The transportation of the Kashmir fruit begins in late September and continues till November-end. The fruit growers say that there is peak demand for Kashmiri apples and other fruits in Delhi, Bombay,Calcutta and other cities during October and November.

"We were happy that this year we will manage to transport the apples early but the strike has nearly crippled us," says Ghulam Ahmad Reshi, an apple-grower from Sopore. He says that apple production in Himachal Pradesh suffered due to a severe drought. In view of the strike, there is shortage of essential items in the market.

Meanwhile, the Kashmir Private Goods Carrier Transporters' Association has called off the strike following an agreement with the state authorities. The government agreed 20 per cent hike in the passenger fare in the state.

Scam in J&K industries department

Ramesh Bhan / UNI in New Delhi adds:

Massive financial and administrative irregularities have been reported in Jammu and Kashmir's Department of Industries and Commerce or DIC.

Although the department officials attribute the losses worth millions of rupees to the decade-long militancy in the Valley, a senior official of the state government held massive corruption and administrative failures at various departmental levels responsible.

''Over a sustained period, there has been inadequate budgetary control in the department and millions of rupees were paid as financial assistance to various industrial units which were either defunct or under liquidation,'' the official said on condition of anonymity.

No records were maintained on either monthly or yearly basis about registers of grants/appropriations and other budgetary control mechanisms and Rs 76.8 million expenditure was incurred during 1993-94 to 1996-97 by the department officials without any budgetary provision.

Nearly 61 per cent of 1,244 handicraft cooperative societies in Kashmir division and 78 per cent of 361 societies in Jammu division set up as of March 1997, were either defunct or under liquidation.

There was no proper follow-up to the handicraft training programme as no carpet weaving unit had come up either in private or cooperative sector despite an expenditure of Rs 30 million during 1993-94 to 1997-98 for the purpose.

The department had not maintained consolidated records and institution-wise details of investment in cooperative societies. It had invested Rs 974 million by 1997-98 end as equity in nine out of ten public sector undertakings and Rs 146 million upto March 1997 in cooperative institutions/societies.

The department had also advanced Rs 1.88 billion long-term loans during the past nine years to these companies which included plan assistance converted into loans. No loan ledgers or other relevant records were maintained for watching recovery of loans and the interest and no arrangements fixing terms and conditions of repayments, etc, were executed with these companies.

According to the latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, funds allotted by the government to the department during 1993-94 to 1997-98 had not been fully utilised resulting in a shortfall in utilisation ranging between six and 51 per cent.

The CAG report, which was made available to this correspondent, says that entries in cash book/drawal registers were not attested/verified regularly by the heads of departments. Physical verification had also not been conducted nor was cash/personal security obtained from the persons handling cash.

This had facilitated embezzlement of Rs 680,000 at the District Industries Centre at Udhampur between June 1990 and April 1997.

Massive amounts of money received by the department were deposited into the government treasury after long delays ranging upto six months in strict violation of government rules which stipulate that the amount should be deposited the same day or the next working day.

The report says that Rs 21.2 million allotted by the government in 1995-97 to the director of industries as a special package for revival of sick units in the state, had remained unutilised and the scheme had not even taken off as on May 1998.

In 1995, under the government's capital invetsment subsidy scheme which envisages Rs 6 million subsidy to a unit with Rs 250 million investment and Rs 3 million for other units, a Jammu unit was given Rs 933,000 by the state level committee even though the general manager, DIC, Jammu, had recommended Rs 828,000. Explanations for the excess Rs 105,000 were not available.

The department has also come under severe criticism on the manpower management front and for many irregular appointments.

As many as 172 people were appointed to different posts during the period 1990-97 directly by various officers in violation of government orders. These included 28 in the industries and commerce department, 136 in handicrafts and eight in handlooms. The vacancies had neither been advertised nor referred to concerned committees.

There was no system of internal controls/checks over recruitment as a result of which irregular appointments remained unnoticed and no cognizance of irregularity was taken into for initiating action against those responsible for violating government orders.

According to the CAG report, about Rs 90 million were outstanding against various loanees of the industries department at the end of March 1998 but no effort had been made for timely recoveries. Even after the announcement of waiver of bank loans by the central government, no loanee came forward for repayment of loan even though the waiver was not applicable to DIC loans.

In the handloom sector, out of 137 registered societies as on April 1, 1997, in Jammu division, 73 societies with a membership of 1,606 weavers were sick/dormant or non-traceable. Of these, 51 societies had been paid assistance including loans and incentives of Rs 2.48 million under the programme of modernisation of looms out of which Rs 1.12 million was recoverable from them at the end of March 1997.

Details of loans and other financial assistance paid and recoverable from remaining 22 defunct societies were not available. A large number of these societies had become ''sick'' immediately after receiving various incentives.

Out of Rs 5.08 million advanced to various societies in Jammu region, Rs 1.94 million was recoverable as of March 1997. The department had not taken any steps to initiate legal proceedings against defaulting societies particularly against those which were sick or dormant or had closed down. There was no system of reconciling the amounts recovered and remitted by subordinate offices.

In addition, there was poor implementation of centrally-sponsored schemes, no recovery of rents of about Rs 4 million from entrepreneurs and government / semi-government departments and no maintenance of stock accounts of blank receipt books and remittance registers among various other irregularities.

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Jammu and Kashmir