India speeding up civil construction to facilitate trade with Pakistan

POONCH-SRINAGAR: Civil construction work is progressing fast in Kashmir to facilitate trade with Pakistan administered Kashmir. A trade centre and a truck terminal near the Chakan-da-Bagh crossing point on the Line of Control (LoC) is under construction, authorities said.

"As the trade Chakan-da-Bagh crossing point on the LoC is to begin, we are constructing a truck tunnel for that. The project cost is little less than 200 million rupees. Ten per cent of the work is completed," said Muhammad Afzal Butt, district development commissioner of Poonch.

Kashmir's main separatists welcomed the move.

"The way people Jammu and Kashmir trade with each other, people of Jammu do it with people of Kashmir, Kashmiri does with people of Ladakh, the people on both the sides of Kashmir should also be able to do it," said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) in Srinagar.

India and Pakistan agreed on arrangements to open a border route for bilateral trade in Kashmir on Monday. The trade on the Poonch-Rawalakot route will begin from October 21 and on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad route as well.

A joint working group comprising senior government officials from both countries met in New Delhi earlier this week to decide on the modalities of the trade.

The neighbours opened a landmark bus service linking Srinagar and Muzaffarabad in April 2005 and have put forth proposals to open more road links across Kashmir.