Title - Heroin seizure adds to traders’ woes They have already been reeling under losses due to wagon crunch

Amritsar:
With the Railway authorities yet to address their woes, the exporters here continue to reel under losses as they are unable to send their goods to Pakistan in the absence of an adequate number of rail wagons.Exporter Rajesh Setia said they got only three rail wagons instead of six in the Samjhauta Express recently for exporting their goods. Besides, he said they were provided 13 out of 34 rail wagons parked in Attari for loading their goods, which again was insufficient.He said the Railways did not provide the remaining 21 wagons, contending that they were being sent for maintenance. This despite the fact that a delegation of traders had recently met the Railway officials, he added.Jaspal Singh, a clearing agent, said the exporters had booked around 200 wagons at the rail cargo facility in Amritsar, but the number of wagons being provided to them is too less. Besides, those wagons were in a bad shape and couldn’t be utilised to its optimum level.

He said the traders have now stopped making further bookings as already a huge quantity of goods has piled up. Jaspal Singh said it was unfortunate that at a time when the US dollar had become strong against rupee and they were trying to earn foreign currency for the country through exports, the Railway authorities weren’t helping them in the matter. The aggrieved traders now again plan to meet Railway officials.

Meanwhile, the fresh seizure of 10 kg of heroin in rail cargo from Pakistan has dealt another blow to an already suffering bilateral trade between the two countries. The trading community feels that they had been breathing easy for the last few months, but this seizure will now deter them from placing further import orders with Pakistani traders.

Last year, various agencies had recovered over 150 kg of heroin in rail cargo from Pakistan in separate instances. The contraband was hidden in cement bags imported from the neighbouring country.