IANS

SRINAGAR AS moderate to heavy snowfall continued in the Kashmir Valley for the second consecutive day on Monday, locals and tourists are now complaining about the scarcity of essential commodities.

“A cylinder of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) which normally costs Rs450, after the present snowfall is being sold at Rs750 in the blackmarket.

Kerosene has also disappeared from theretail outlets as it is being sold in the black-market at Rs25 per litre”, complained Manzoor Ahmad, a Srinagar resident.

Before the fresh snowfall, the authorities had claimed that enough stocks of LPG cylinders were available in the valley to ward off any crisis caused by the closure of the Jammu-Srinagar national highway.

Surprisingly, the state government on Monday started rationing of LPG cylinders by issuing instructions to gas companies that they should supply LPG cylinders filled with just five kg of gas (instead of the normal 14 kg) till the LPG supplies are restored after the Jammu- Srinagar highway is reopened. The highway remained closed for the second day on Monday and the traffic on it has remained highly erratic and mismanaged during the last fortnight.

Some tourists, who had come here to enjoy the snowfall, are now requesting the authorities to arrange their departure from the valley.

“We planned to leave the valley on Sunday, but all flights got cancelled because of the bad weather. The airline authorities returned our money. We wanted to leave through the Srinagar-Jammu highway, but that is also at present closed,” said Pannaben, who has come here from Rajkot in Gujarat with her family.