Indian Air Force on Monday airlifted 300 metric tons of food items, including fresh vegetables and milk from Jammu to Srinagar to replenish the stocks of these items in view of closure of Srinagar-Jammu national highway.
To help the civil administration, air force under operation 'Hamsafar' pressed its load carrying fleet into service and ferried a total of 300 metric tons of food items from Jammu to Srinagar, a defence spokesman said.
He said these food items were ferried through IL-76 and AN-32 aircraft from Jammu to Srinagar. Hundreds of trucks carrying goods were stranded on the highway, which remained closed for the ninth day on Monday.
Although there was no scarcity of vegetables, the state administration requested the IAF to airlift the food items to Srinagar as these items remained in the trucks on the highway for many days, an official spokesman said, adding that vegetables cultivated locally were available in abundance in the city and other towns.
The state administration has intensified market checking to curb the menace of hoarding, black marketing and profiteering in the Valley. Teams of consumer affairs and public distribution department have been fanned to nook and corner of the valley to oversee that shopkeepers do not resort to unfair means, he said.
He said the administration pressed mobile vans into service to provide LPG cylinders to consumers in the city for the past two days in view of complaints of shortage of cooking gas. The consumer affairs and public distribution department will use mobile vans for keeping LPG gas cylinders available to the consumers at their doorsteps, the spokesman said.