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| Kishtwar city road a death trap, several pot holes threaten commuters lives | | | Asif Iqbal Naik
Kishtwar, May 1: The 2.5 Kilometer road stretch of Chatroo-Kishtwar-Jammu highway passing through Kishtwar town threatens the lives of thousands of commuters, particularly the school going kids with the rate of the accidents on this road increasing at an alarming pace.
In last one or two months several school going children becomes the victims of the official apathy of the General Reserve Engineering Force (GREF) responsible for maintenance of the road. The latest causality of the pot holes tragedy is 5 year old Sahil son of Ashok Kumar resident of Palmar who got injured after a motorcycle avoiding the pot hole hit him at Bus Stand Kishtwar. Injured Sahil had developed fractured in his nose and is being treated at District Hospital Kishtwar. Many people blames pot holes on the road as a cause of increasing day to day accident on road stretch from Malipath chowk to Kuleed chowk Kishtwar.
This five year old boy is not only the victim of GREF official apathy, an elderly man while crossing the road was hit by the vehicle at Malipath couple of days ago as a result of which he developed fracture in his foot and a wrist. The local people informed the "Early Times" that the National highway passing through Kishtwar town has become a major headache not only for the pedestrian on this road, but also to the people living on either side of the road.
"Poor road surface, poor maintenance of drainage system is the major cause of growing accident on this road-the drain water enters into the houses of people living on both side of the road and all credit for peoples suffering goes to the GREF" said Ajaiz Hussain. He said that that GREF authority has forget to black-top the road surface since last over 10 years while in actual the period should not exceed beyond 5 years. Another youth Abrar Zarger said that due to poor road surfaces, this road has become a hell for the shopkeepers. He said that during dry days dust created the problem while during rainy days, water logging and mud becomes the order of the day. He said that the administration as well as the government must push the GREF authorities to maintain the road stretch properly.
Another shopkeeper Arif Munishi said that dusty road has led to health hazards problems to the shopkeepers, particularly lungs infection, throat infection and Nose infection. Arshad Mir living near hospital chowk said that due to improper drainage system, the water enters into their home threatening their property. He said that the drain passes through hospital chowk was full of garbage and was never clean by the GREF authorities since it was constructed over 15 years ago. He said that he and his family approaches the concern quarters several times but in return only gets assurance.
Meanwhile several people claim that GREF authorities have withdrawn huge bills for maintenance of the road stretch, but added on ground hardly a single penny was spent on upliftment of the road surfaces. They said that ahead of any high profile visit in the town, GREF authorities take some cosmetic measure to fill up the huge pot holes and demanded that government must initiate inquiry into the GREF embezzlement beside urging the government to direct GREF authorities to black-top Malipath to Kuleed Chowk Kishtwar road stretch as well as to construct the proper drainage system on both sides of the road so that people get respite from water logging problem as well. |
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