Kashmir’s struggling apple growers found some respite on Wednesday after authorities threw open the Jammu-Srinagar national highway for heavy vehicles, allowing hundreds of stranded fruit-laden trucks to proceed to markets across the country.
Thousands of apple-filled trucks were stuck on the highway for weeks after landslides and flash floods forced the closure of the highway at multiple places during the worst weather-related calamity in Jammu and Kashmir in years.
Officials said on Wednesday that heavy vehicles were allowed to pass following the partial restoration of a caved-in stretch of the highway in Ramban district. The highway was reopened for light vehicles last week.
“Our aim is to clear the maximum number of stranded vehicles that are loaded with fruits,” senior superintendent of police (traffic-rural) Ravindra Singh told reporters.
“All the stranded vehicles along the highway and those waiting at the fruit mandis will be cleared on priority,”
he added.
Strict guidelines have been issued to drivers to follow the traffic advisory and avoid overtaking.
The fruit growers claim to have suffered losses running into hundreds of crores during the weeks-long closure, with videos of rotten fruit dumped on the highway sparking panic.
Kashmir Valley Fruit Growers Association president Bashir Ahmad Bashir said the damage could not be undone but the reopening of the road had come as a major relief to them. “It is a good beginning and we hope the trucks will henceforth move smoothly,” Bashir told The Telegraph.
The association president said some 5,000 to 7,000 trucks were stuck on the national highway and other roads in Kashmir.
Many fruit growers and Valley politicians believe the central government is deliberately going slow on the restoration of the highway to cripple the local economy.
Following an outrage, the administration recently used the alternative Mughal Road and the recently inaugurated train service to ferry the fruits to markets outside the Union Territory, but that had provided only a limited respite
to people.
The Kashmir economy was already struggling after the April 22 militant attack on tourists in Pahalgam.
Kashmiri politicians have been training their guns on the elected Omar Abdullah government too, accusing the chief minister of doing little to ease the crisis — although the direct responsibility of the highway maintenance remains with the central government.
Omar on Wednesday inspected the highway for the second time in a week in an apparent bid to counter the allegations.