Jammu: Authorities on Sunday flagged off a fleet of 100 trucks for transportation of livestock and migratory tribal families from various districts to the highland pastures in Jammu and Kashmir, an official said here.
The trucks have been deployed both on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway and the Mughal Road, an alternative link connecting the twin border districts of Poonch and Rajouri in Jammu with south Kashmir’s Shopian, the official said.
He said the transportation system was put in place by the tribal affairs department to reduce the travel time from 20-30 days on foot to 1-2 days, besides ensuring smooth traffic management on the strategic roads.
Secretary, Tribal Affairs Department, Shahid Iqbal Choudhary said Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha has committed to provide transportation support and transit facilities to the migratory tribal population.
“Directions were also issued by Chief Secretary Arun Kumar Mehta to ensure saturation in transport facilities and to cover 100 per cent of the migratory population on the national highway and Mughal road,” he said.
Choudhary said required funds are also being released in favour of the J&K Road Transport Corporation for procurement of trucks to provide transportation facilities to the migratory tribal families.
The Finance department has advised the Tribal Affairs department to avail the services of JKRTC for the movement of transhumant tribal population till a formal policy in this regard is framed by the government.
The officer said the trucks would ply along the National Highway from Kathua, Samba, Jammu, Udhampur to various destinations in Kashmir and on the Mughal road axis from Rajouri and Poonch to various destinations in Kashmir.
According to official figures, over 16,000 migratory tribal families were benefited during the last year after spending summer months in the Kashmir pastures and brought back in trucks to their destinations in various districts of Jammu division.
The government had earlier announced the provision of transport or freight services for the migratory tribal population during the annual migration to highland pastures.
There was persistent demand from the migratory tribal community that they face a lot of hardships during the migration due to traffic jams and other hindrances and to make their journey smoother, they should be provided some transportation mode.
It was observed that occasionally due to harsh weather conditions, there was loss of livestock and other damage, causing a lot of inconvenience to the nomadic families.
