After remaining closed for almost a week, Jammu-Srinagar highway was opened for traffic on last weekend as Border Roads Organization launched Bailey bridge adjacent to the damaged portion of the road in Ramban district within 60 hours.
Closing of the strategic highway, the only surface link connecting Kashmir with the outside world, is not a one-off incident but ironically it happens more often than not. The moment is rain or snow, the highway gets closed.
As days progress into the season of rains and snowfall, the road is bound to see more disruptions. At the cost of repetition, the problem is not new and there has been no answer, from those who are at the helm, to the questions that the people have been asking for decades now: “how long would these closures, and disruptions, happen on the highway.”
Denying geographical facts including the terrain and vulnerability from landslides to snow would not be prudent. However, in this day and age such issues should be manageable, at least to the extent that the closure becomes a rarity rather than normal, more so during winters. The weather vagaries are not the only contributing factors to the disturbances on this thoroughfare. In effect much of the problems are manmade. The way traffic is managed on this road has always remained a matter of concern for the people who travel on this road.
There have always been complaints of negligence and ill planning. Such issues need to be addressed on priority.
There are various projects that are said to ease the troubles that confront the commuters.
There are a number of projects that are running for many years and this has resulted in multiple problems on this key road. Apart from easing the movement of traffic, these projects are also said to shorten the distance. However, the problems have accentuated by the pace with which the work is being carried out on these projects.
The administration even failed to utilize the lockdown due to pandemic to speed up the work on highway and remove the bottlenecks. One would expect the construction work accelerated because unless the widening is complete and the defenses erected at various places to disallow the landslides from blocking the thoroughfare, nothing can stop the nightmarish experience for the commuters due to the pathetic condition of the road.
The closure of the highway causes food prices to skyrocket and as such comes at a price for the people of Kashmir.
The government must consider taking experts views and professionals’ expertise for finding a lasting solution to the problems causing disruption on the highway.
