Srinagar, July 8 (KNS): JK People's Party chief Sheeban Ashai on Wednesday threw his weight behind the striking hot mix plant owners in Srinagar, terming their demands "genuine" and warning that bureaucratic apathy was derailing road infrastructure across the Valley.
Extending support to the Joint Hot Mix Plant Owners Association's sit-in at the Chief Office Rajbagh, Ashai flagged three core issues—pending payments stuck for months, curbs on sand and gravel extraction, and lack of transparency in government tendering processes.
"The concerns are not just legitimate but urgent. These delays have pushed plant owners to the brink and left thousands of workers in the lurch. More critically, road-laying work across Kashmir has come to a grinding halt," Ashai told protesters.
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In a sharp attack on the Omar Abdullah dispensation, the JK People's Party chief accused certain ministers and officials of high-handedness, insisting that "development cannot be held hostage to bureaucratic red tape."
Ashai demanded that the government immediately initiate talks with the association and resolve the pending issues without further delay. He stressed that transparency and timely grievance redressal were non-negotiable if the administration was serious about the region's developmental agenda.
"The authorities must come to the table constructively. Any further inaction will only deepen the crisis and hit public interest hard," he added. (KNS)