Srinagar, Mar 30 (KMW): At a largely attended Conference held at Srinagar today by Kashmir Society, presided over by Khwaja Farooq Renzushah in which various important issues concerning to J&K were highlighted.
According to a statement, the delegates, scholars, members of civil society and other participants emphasized for declaring J&K State drug free and Wine Free State. The participants of the conference pointed out that with the increase of tourist rush to the State particularly, Kashmir Valley, all Airlines have enhanced air tariff to Ten to Twenty thousand from Srinagar to Jammu and Delhi respectively.
Since thousands of students of Kashmir are studying outside and their families have to visit them to and fro when road remains closed, why citizens of J&K should bear the burden of enhanced tariff. It was demanded that Airport Authority of India should issue a circular for fixing permanent tariff of Rs twenty five hundred from Jammu to Srinagar and thirty five hundred from Delhi to Srinagar and back only for the State-subjects of J&K State. All State subjects should be given a computerized State-subject Card to avail this facility, so that their travel should not suffer unnecessarily during tourist season.
As Kashmir Society has been always highlighting various genuine demands, one of the demands of Kashmir Society in its prestigious Conference was that Water tariff should be imposed on NHPC. The society complemented the concerned authorities who understood this idea and succeeded in recovering more than seven hundred crores from NHPC as water tariff. The members pointed out that keeping in view the same formula, there is an ample scope for imposing separate tariff in JK on Private Phone Operators and cell phone providing companies as well as on Private National Channels as per the special provisions of the law which were applied in case of NHPC with regard to water tariff. It can fetch more than five thousand crores annually to J&K government from these private providers for using J&K communication space and this revenue can be used to rehabilitate and employ large chunk of IT expert youth of J&K state.
The Society also discussed threadbare. The death of Pashmina producing goats in Chenthong area on last week of March in 2013, as a result of Food starvation. Our society was the first forum which brought it out for public debate The need was felt that entire Shahtoos, Pashmina and other related trade is required to be given proper attention. Ban of Shahtoos should be revoked as it has affected Kashmir Shahtoos trade while as there is no ban on Shahtoos in China. The members said that the matter was brought in the notice of environment Ministry and Handicrafts Ministry several times and society will continue to hammer these issues.
The Kashmir Society Chairman, Khwaja Farooq Renzushah was appreciated in the conference for endorsing the name Shaikh-ul-Alam Airport for Srinagar International Airport when he was Deputy Commissioner of that Area during the expansion of Airport. All the delegates demanded that the Name should be revived again as all the Airlines have deliberately deleted the name from their websites. (KMW)
