The J&K Traffic Police department on Saturday disputed an article in a national Hindi daily claiming that fruit trucks were being deliberately halted on the highway on the behest of cold storage owners.
The article said that the fruit trucks were being stopped for 2-3 days so that the growers are compelled to sell them off to the cold storage owners instead of taking the produce to the open market.
Terming the report as “unfounded, misleading and mischievous”, J&K Traffic Police said in a statement, “As per the data collected by NHAI at the Quazigund toll plaza, between 01-09-2022 and 30-09-2022, 51,306 trucks including 33,105 apple carrying trucks moved from Quazigund to other parts of the country via NH 44.
It said that 33105Â fruit trucks had plied on the highway in September.
“Further given that the entire backlog of trucks at Quazigund were cleared on 26-09-2022, it is obvious that the daily flow of apple trucks from out of the Kashmir valley to other parts of the country is only 1100 apple trucks per day, and not the higher figures of 2000 or 2500 apple trucks per day as is being claimed by vested interests, ” it said.
“Similarly, the daily flow of truck in the Kashmir Valley towards Jammu and other parts of the country is only about 1600 trucks per day, ” it added.
“Given that the Down HMV traffic moves on alternate days, thus the maximum stranded trucks at Qazigund is only 1600 trucks unless the Down movement is hampered by partial or complete closure of the NH 44 due to shooting stones, landslides or repair work. Details of travel hours lost over the last week to Shooting stones, other blockages and repair work by NHAI is given below. It may be noted that NHAI had requested for No traffic window of 4 hours per day for 5 days starting 24th Sept 2022, for repair works which was allowed by the government”.
