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| With nobody's baby condition of Srinagar-Jammu national highway goes from bad to worse | | |  Jehangir Rashid
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Feb 15: Considered to be an arterial link of Kashmir valley the 294 kilometers long Srinagar-Jammu national highway has outlived its life, but it does not make difference for the people at helm.
The Jammu & Kashmir government is least bothered about the condition of the national highway. The lackadaisical attitude from the people at helm can be gauged by the fact that no alternate highway has been developed over the past so many decades.
The condition of this important highway is so bad that even few centimeters of rain or snow closes the road for days together. Same has happened over the past few days. The moderate snowfall in Kashmir coupled with rains in Jammu division on February 12 (Monday) has led to the closure of the highway up to this moment of time.
"The snow on most places on the highway from the Kashmir side continued for not more than 12 hours, but still then the road had to be closed for days together. On the Jammu side the rain started in the morning and continued for few hours, but still then the mountains caved in leading to closure of road," said Gulzar Ahmad, a resident of Kulgam.
It would be in place to mention here that the Srinagar-Jammu national highway remained closed for fourth consecutive day today. The highway had to be closed in the morning on February 12 following snow near the Jawahar tunnel and rains on the other side of the two and half kilometers long tunnel.
"Thankfully the establishment of poly houses has led to a revolution in the vegetable production in the Kashmir valley; otherwise the people would have been caught napping on this front. Still then there are many things which come to Kashmir from the other states of India and there is a scarcity of these things," said Muzaffar Ahmad, a transporter.
People in general complain that the government forgets about developing an alternate link between Kashmir and Jammu as soon as the traffic gets resumed on the present highway. They said that serious thought should be given to this whole issue so that the problem gets solved once for all.
"In this fast age when distance between two places is covered in least time it is a shame that Srinagar-Jammu national highway remains closed for days together as soon as few drops of rain come down. Connectivity between Kashmir and Jammu would be improved only when an alternate road is developed by the authorities," said Imtiyaz Ahmad, a resident of Srinagar. |
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