Dawar (Gurez), Aug 14: Belying the claims of Centre and State government of upgrading road infrastructure in the remote areas of Jammu and Kashmir, the strategic Gurez Bandipore road is in shambles.
 The condition of this 84-kilometre road can be gauged from the fact that the journey from Bandipora to reach here, which could  be covered in only two hours, takes more than 5-6 hours due to the dilapidated road.
  “It is conspiracy to keep us away from the Valley . After closure of our links with Pakistan Administered Kashmir and Gilgit, the Kashmir too has become out of bounds for us due to bad condition of the road. We hardly go there due to absymal condition of the road,” said a resident Fayaz Ahmad of Dawar.
 Locals said that they had approached authorities time and again to get the road repaired but their pleas till date have fallen flat on deaf ears. 
  “We have met everybody from ministers of the successive ruling cliques to top officials of the state administration to repair the road, but our repeated pleas have fallen flat on deaf ears. Every year, government asserts that they are spending crores of rupees for the upgradation of roads under Pradhan Mantri Gharam Sadak Yojana, Border Areas Development programme and other allied schemes, but nothing is being done for maintenance of this vital road,” they said, adding that bad condition of road was main hurdle in bringing the region on the tourism map.
 “How can tourists come here when there is no accessibility? The most important thing for tourism is proper access,” they added.
 The harsh weather conditions in winter do impact the maintenance of this road. Besides, landslides triggered by rains and snow do hamper road widening.
 When contacted, Chief Engineer Beacon Brigadier T P Rawat said that they have started work on widening of the road from the present 6 metres to 7.5 metres.
 “We have started work on the portion for which we have got the clearance. There are some issues of forest clearance and land acquisition and once it is done then resurfacing would be done,” he said.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 14 Aug 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 14 Aug 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:00:00 IST