Roads are an index to a nation’s prosperity, and without good roads there can be no development at all, writes Basim  Amin Bazaz.

The general condition of roads in Kashmir could be described as poor. Or could it? Perhaps pathetic would be a better choice. Or would it be wretched. I would certainly have used a stronger word but for my handicap to find it. The fury of the winter has left our roads in dire straits. I mean the ditches present on some of the most important roads, connectivity-wise, are no less than craters. The deterioration of the roads this time has happened at an alarming rate. So much so that it is difficult to believe that you are traveling the same road you did the last weekend. I won’t out rightly blame the government or the division that handles our roads; at least not for another month or so. Fixing our roads by no means is going to be easy this time. Although to make roads that are washed by rains is no achievement in itself, they still deserve the benefit of doubt.  But yes, how they cope up with the situation will be of utmost interest.
The incessant rains we witnessed for the last month or so have washed away half the tarmac from half our roads. What is left will vanish with the already increased levels of traffic. In these conditions, the single most relevant question to ask is, what can we do to avoid all this misery inflicted on us each and every year?  A simple answer would be to build better roads. Roads that withstand the effect of rains and snows and even frost. But is it possible to construct such roads? Of course, it is. I mean Kashmir definitely is not the only place which witnesses a temperature of sub zero. Nor is it the only place that is freezing and yet has roads, that too good ones. So why on earth can we not make roads like they make in Moscow or Switzerland or Siberia for that matter? Obviously the initial investment to build a road that stands temperature differences of 40 to 50 degrees will be more. But won’t it be beneficial to make the investment considering that the need to build the same road again and again every year will be eliminated. A living example of such an immaculate road would be the M.A. Road or the Residency Road. How many times have you seen that road being repaired? If they don’t do it secretly under the shrouds of the night, in my lifetime I would say once or maybe twice. In a lifetime of 30 years that would make it after every 15 years. So yes, we can make roads that stay put for as long as 15 years. So why don’t we make them? This is what bothers me much more than anything else. Why do we spend millions to make roads every year for rains to wash them away if we can make a single life time investment such that they withstand the effects of the weather? It does look a better and a more rational choice on the face of it, unless there is a technically unassailable impediment that we do not know about. Well, if there is one, let us hear about it. If there isn’t then yes, we definitely want only those roads that are motorable for the entirety of the year and not the ones we have today. The ones that look like roads for a maximum of four months; remain dilapidated for the next four months and get reconstructed for the remaining year!
I live towards the northern part of the Srinagar town. I travel across the city to the southern part of it every day. Although I don’t get to travel to the outskirts and peripheries much, I can easily say that the condition of the roads there as well is no better than what I witness. If I say that I choose a road that is at least five kilometres longer than usual but gets me to my destination in much lesser time, I may be lying. But I am not. I do it every day. No, it is not because of traffic congestion. In fact you don’t find any traffic on this road anymore. It remains deserted. Expect for the poor man who actually lives by the roadside, nobody dares to grace the road with his presence.  Actually the poor man never used to be poor. He became poor looking after his car. Anyways, by now you must have had a pretty good idea about the road I am talking about. Yes, it is the grand Ali Jan road. Sometime back you could swear by the road, but now you hardly walk on it without getting your trousers scathed. It is a two lane road. At least that is how it looks like in the plan. One lane is under a sewer. The other lane is apparently under a curse. If you haven’t seen the road, I will pray to Allah that you never have to. I will never encourage it anyway. It is needless to say that the road is the shortest possible route to SKIMS, the best hospital in the valley, if you are approaching from south or east. It also happens to be the shortest link between SKIMS and SMHS as well.
Talking about sewer, we do understand that it is imperative to lay sewers under our roads because water is like poison to the roads. There simply cannot be a good road unless water logging is totally avoided. So basically laying sewers is the right step towards prolonging the life of our roads. We dare not question the rationale behind that. But what is to be questioned is the time it takes to lay them and the inconvenience it causes to the public. Hoping that our children and grand children find them completed and enjoy better roads, I still prefer to overlook the problem. However what I just cannot overlook are the ditches that are on display on the Safa Kadal bridge. If I am not wrong, the entire road from Jehangir Chowk to Seki Dafar was meticulously constructed using machines that people can only dream about. This too only... let me count... 9 months ago. Not one layer of tarmac, not two but at least three layers were laid. But as I said earlier, you can find craters on the road, exactly over the Safa Kadal bridge. Why did the road not last even a year? I don’t know. Let the person who knows come forward and answer. If at all there is an answer!
Roads are a parameter to judge the prosperity of a nation. Bad roads are a bad blot on the face.  Some years back, Narayan Murthy, the ex-CEO of Infosys, the IT giant of India, happened to visit Kashmir. He was keen on setting up a unit at the industrial estate at Rangreth.  Allah knows how much employment it would have created.  Little did he know that his idea was going to go fishing much before he visited the site. The road leading to Rangreth was so bad that his hopes of bringing Infosys to Kashmir died a premature death. So did the chances of all the youth who could have been working there right now. We talk about creating employment. And how do we create it; by letting big wigs go away.
We may be poor but we certainly are not so poor that we cannot have at least a good network of roads. Everything said and done, it is imperative for us to give our people roads fit for travel. We can do it, no question about it. We have the skills, we have the technology, we have the resources. There is no running away from it. If not today, ten years down the line, our roads have to improve. If they don’t, there can be no improvement anywhere else either. Development starts with a good infrastructure and roads are the backbone of infrastructure. With no good roads there can be no development at all. So let us do it and do it now rather than ten years later. And lets not forget that we are not doing it for the sake of anybody else but only for our own selves.

(Feedback at basim.amin@yahoo.com)

Lastupdate on : Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 IST