Step up restoration work on Jmu-Sgr highway
Monday was the second day running when the all-important Jammu-Srinagar National Highway remained closed for any type of vehicular movement. The landslide-hit Highway remained closed even though officials said that the road clearance operation is underway at 20 locations and the process may take about six days.
Notably, hundreds of vehicles are left stranded on the strategic 250-kilometre highway — the only all-weather road linking Kashmir with the rest of the country — on Sunday after heavy rainfall and cloudbursts triggered flash floods, landslides and mudslides in Ramban district.
Three persons, including two minor siblings, were killed and more than 100 people were rescued as the natural calamity caused massive damage to infrastructure, including roads and residential buildings. A number of vehicles were also buried under the debris.
Huge mounds of massive deposits of muck have come crumbling down on the highway at more than a dozen places, especially on the four-kilometre stretch between Seri and Maroog. The height of the sludge at some places is more than 20 feet. This had made the clearance process complex and time consuming.
What is worry some is that the highway has suffered major damages near Panthiyal and Kela Morh, which has left the authorities with no other option than to fully close the highway for any vehicular movement.
The Jammu-Srinagar Highway has been a major bottleneck to development of Kashmir, Leh and other regions falling on this side of the Pirpanchal range. Though the highway has seen tremendous works being done to convert it into a four lave road which would have ensured all round connectivity to the region.
The authorities have been successful to a large extent to convert the road into a four lave highway, but the portion in Ramban sector is giving sleepless nights to authorities since many years.
The path of the highway remains in headlines for all the wrong reasons and most of the time during heavy downpour in the region, the highway faces closure for hours together hampering not only movement of vehicles but also snapping the region from the rest of the country.
This issue though being addressed is however, taking lot of time and the region can hardly afford that. The road link is proving to be a nightmare for commuters most of whom are tourists who are visiting Kashmir during this part of the year.
The tourist footfall is all the more likely to increase as the heat wave in most of the plains in India has set in and people have started to move to the hilly areas to get a breather.
In such a scenario the highway opening becomes all the more important as an entire industry will lose its potential customers due to their bad experience of the road travel they are undertaking.
The restoration work therefore needs to be taken up on a war footing and the road opening should happen in few days’ time compared to the deadline set by the authorities of the National Highway Authority of India.
