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Uncontrolled traffic jams, rough patches makes travel on Sgr- Jmu highway miserable

KT NEWS SERVICE. Dated: 8/13/2017 10:25:52 PM

Road widening cause traffic jams: IGP Traffic

SRINAGAR, Aug 13 : Travelling on 300-kilometer Jammu-Srinagar highway has become a nightmarish experience as the condition of the road especially from Lowermonda to Ramban has gone from bad to worse.
The travelers have raised an alarm that the national highway has been left to the mercy of God and there are no control systems in place.
The commuters allege that traffic police is just busy with minting money from the commuters resulting in a huge chaos on the highway.
One of the commuters who recently travelled from Srinagar to Jammu gave his horrifying experience about the road as it took his vehicle thirteen hours to reach his destination. “The road patch between Lowermonda to Ramban is so bad in shape that it took me 13 hours to reach Jammu. Let me be honest, no traffic police are Jammu and Kashmir police was found available on this patch,” the visibility disappointed traveler told KNS.
He said that the uncontrolled traffic jams with rough patches makes travel so miserable. “This is the employed duty of the traffic police who opt for such postings to control and manage the traffic on the national highway but they are busy with minting money,” said the traveler.
The travelers said that the traffic control rooms which were established crowdedly by the government are rendered without information about the status of the highway. “These control rooms because of lack of information do not respond to the calls”, they maintained.
People blame the government for the pathetic condition of the Highway. “It seems the authorities and the governments are not concerned about the highway,” said a group of highway commuters.
Those traveling on the road regularly attribute the frequent occurring of accidents to the dilapidated condition of the road right from Pantha-Chowk in Srinagar outskirts up to Ramban.
“The continued accidents that have taken place during the past few months claiming several precious lives and injuries to many others have been unfortunate and tragic and what is even more shocking is the explanation offered to such tragic accidents,” said a Tata sumo driver adding that it is actually the dilapidated condition of the road which causes the frequent accidents.
They said that though crores of rupees are allocated annually for maintenance of 300 KM NHI by the Government of India, physically, the road at many places is completely in shambles which is likely to take a heavy toll in the coming months.
Despite several appeals to concerned authorities to repair the roads, the concerned authorities have failed to eradicate the problems faces by commuters on daily basis.
The Sumo drivers and Truck Drivers have appealed the concerned authorities and government to repair the road as early as possible which has been irksome for them and has been causing great inconvenience.
When contacted Inspector General of Traffic Police, Jagjit Kumar, he said that the current road widening sometimes cause traffic jams on the highway. “For smooth flow of traffic we have deployed extra traffic men on the national highway, but the current road widening sometimes cause traffic jams,” the IGP said.