Srinagar, Apr 27: A backbreaking drive on the dusty bumpy Kacha road. This is how the government welcomes the tourists flying in to the summer capital because the traffic inflow on the Airport Road is being diverted to a dilapidated link road, which even heavy vehicles would avoid to ply on.
 The entire inflow of vehicular traffic coming from the Srinagar International Airport and central Kashmir’s Budgam district is being diverted towards the Rawal Pora link road which snakes along a canal because the Economic Reconstruction Agency (ERA) started constructing drain on the Airport Road exactly at the start of much awaited tourist season.
 The Airport Road stretch which connects to the Hyderpora square has been dug up while the Traffic police found it inconvenient manage two way traffic through a single available lane there.
 This raises simple logical queries. One, why wasn’t the link road  to Rawal Pora macadamized prior to the traffic diversion? Two, why did the ERA start the crucial part of the work just at the start of the tourist season? For that matter why wasn’t the work completed during the winter spell when the business activities remain at a minimal low?
 Well these questions might carry no meaning to ERA, the agency which is known all the way for wrong reasons, particularly in the south City suburb where four years on, it has failed to complete 18 month drainage project. And it’s the same drainage mess, which after the locals for now has even taken tourists for a ride.
 But if the ERA is known for failures about the drainage project, why did the civil administration remain sleeping over the Airport Road issue?
 Even an Aam Aadmi traveling down the road knew that traffic regulation would be tedious during execution of the ongoing work near the Hyderpora square.
 The issue didn’t pertain to Aam Aadmi alone who suffers everyday on City streets(either because of bad roads or traffic congestion), but it was more about the impression which the tourists would get soon after landing at the airport.
 The fallout has been as expected. After drive on the Rawal Pora link road, where vehicles literally crawl cautiously because of bad road conditions and fear of felling into canal, the adjoining macadamized road is no good either.
 A portion of this low lying road is still waterlogged in knee-deep waters –enough to convey that Srinagar continues to be no better than an ignored countryside.
 As for the locals, everyone particularly office goers and students have to waste their precious time in the diversion.
 But for most of the VIPs, be it Mantris or Babus, none has to face inconvenience. There’s no diversion for them as they get a go ahead on the Airport Road.
 For the National Conference led government, which bagged all the eight Srinagar constituency seats in the Assembly elections, the elected representatives should have come up with a better plan or atleast volunteered to bear the diversion, the way have nots have been doing since last week. But nobody from the government top brass even bothered to have a look of the Kacha road till Tuesday afternoon when Inspector General of Police Traffic Hemant Kumar Lohia soon after landing in Srinagar was seen visiting the area.
 Later in the evening, after a meeting on traffic regulation, the IGP is understood to have taken Divisional Commissioner Dr Asgar Hassan Samoon and other officials along for an on the spot assessment.
 And this was when the civil administration came to know that the road was not worth traffic diversion as it was yet to be repaired. But then it was too late to correct the decision, which has left the Airport Road is a mess exactly at a time when Kashmir was bracing up for tourist season but the government was caught apparently napping!

Lastupdate on : Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:00:00 IST