SRINAGAR: A delegation of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), led by its President Javid Ahmad Tenga, met Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha at Raj Bhawan on Thursday, seeking urgent government and banking intervention to help the business community recover from the economic shock triggered by the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam.
The delegation, comprising senior KCCI office-bearers including Senior Vice President Ashiq Hussain Shangloo, Junior Vice President Fayaz Ahmad Punjabi, Secretary General Faiz Ahmad Bakshi, Treasurer Zubair Mahajan, and Executive Committee Member Mohammad Ibrahim Siah, submitted a detailed memorandum to the LG outlining the far-reaching economic impact of the attack.
In the meeting, President Tenga underscored the deep financial distress currently facing Kashmir’s business sector, particularly tourism, handicrafts, transport, private sector employees, and daily wagers. He said the tragedy had severely disrupted cash flows, with tourist footfall plummeting and thousands of enterprises struggling to repay loans taken in anticipation of continued economic revival.
“The tragedy has shaken public confidence and left the business community reeling,” Tenga said, emphasising that many transporters and service providers who had made significant capital investments are now on the brink of default.
To mitigate the crisis, KCCI called for a comprehensive relief package from the Centre, similar to those announced after the 2014 floods and the Covid-19 pandemic. The ten-point memorandum submitted to the LG includes demands such as an interest subvention scheme, a one-time loan moratorium with account classification protection, emergency credit lines, soft loans for non-loanee businesses, tax waivers, including transport-related levies, power bill amnesty for commercial consumers, and the immediate release of pending contractor payments.
Tourism promotion and an extension of Jammu and Kashmir Bank’s One-Time Settlement (OTS) scheme in line with MSME guidelines also figured prominently in the Chamber’s appeal.
The Lieutenant Governor assured the delegation that the administration was fully aware of the situation and sensitive to the pain and anxieties being faced by the business community. “The concerns raised will be examined by the government,” Sinha said, adding that economic sectors that had shown growth in recent years must rise to the occasion to sustain employment and confidence.
