The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is now taking action that directly deals with the daily commuters’ and the businesses that has long-lasting suffering on the famous Srinagar-Jammu National Highway (NH-44).
Among other things, the holding of such a summit-level meeting by the Union minister that encompassed the Chief Minister of J&K and top officials of the UT Administration indicates that the people at the highest levels have listened to the requests.
The scenario on NH-44 was so bad that it was causing a halt to the area’s economic growth, putting the whole tourism sector in jeopardy, and, at the same time, frightening the locals with the dark side of their lives.
The noise made by the citizens through the media and various civic voices was just too loud to be overlooked. It does show that the current government responds to the citizens in their demand for change.
Among many things, it is praiseworthy to have this top-tier meeting. Such a meeting creates an example of a more congenial discussion between the Central and the Union Territory.
The union minister and the Chief Minister, by such an event, would take the debate to a new level, from merely grasping the challenges as per the national infrastructure perspective to involving the ground realities of administration and national infrastructure. It is done to check whether the solutions that are attainable by the people and still have an aspirational element.
The mingling of senior NHAI officials with J & K administration will not only accelerate decision-making but also set a level of accountability, thus reducing the implementation timeline. This shifts the move beyond engagement post-discussion about the issue to a place that provides feasible action strategies.
There is a big chance that the next step or one of the next steps the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs will take is a change of direction for NH-44. Such visible actions we have been expecting for a long time from the government for the citizens are nothing but the real measures to hand over the work to give it a thorough review as well as the pledge of accelerating the work that is left and drafting a program for a resumption of the heavy work especially for the areas affected by bad weather.
By such a method, we will hardly ever talk about repairing by patching, rather, we will be talking about a safe road way.
