Srinagar, Aug 7: At a time when governments even in the metropolitan cities like New Delhi are so sensitive towards people’s privacy living in the vicinity of flyovers, that they got fibre glass walls erected along the elevated expressways, the Jammu and Kashmir government seems to have slept over the issue as the upcoming facility at Hyderpora in Srinagar has no such walling.
 Resentment is brewing among the Hyderpora residents as the flyover, which overlooks a considerable part of the south City and is expected to be inaugurated soon, is void of any such walling.
 Sources in Roads and Building (R&B) department said there was no scope of erecting any fibre glass wall.
 “This issue ought to have been discussed during planning phase but the irony is that nobody ever talked about it,” the sources said.

THE FEARS
 The flyover, scheduled to be thrown open this month, after years of chronic delay, has raised the concerns among public circles as they fear “breach in privacy” due to the traffic movement. Given the considerable height of the flyover, the residents said their houses have been unduly put to “full public gaze.”
 “Ours is a conservative society where people don’t like infringement into privacy… But because of this flyover, leave apart our lawns even the rooms have lost privacy as everything is visible from the expressway,” said a group of locals.
 They said some days back the locals had a brawl with some miscreants over alleged eve teasing as the latter standing on the under-construction flyover were constantly gazing towards a particular group of houses.
 “When we objected they (miscreants) pleaded that they were standing at a public place and this lead to exchange of blows,” the locals said.
 “When this is the scene even before the commissioning of the flyover, the future situation can only be imagined,” said a Kashmir University teacher living in the area.
 “What is preventing the government from raising fibre walling along the flyover,” the stakeholders argued.

GOVT SPEAKS
 While the Chief Engineer R&B didn’t respond to phone calls, the Minister of State for R&B Javed Ahmed Dar was initially reluctant to buy the public version.
 “In that case they should shift elsewhere,” he said. But when informed that many flyovers outside state even in places like New Delhi have come up with walling to maintain neighbourhood privacy, the minister said: “Then it’s a different case.”
 Dar said the government would look into the modalities of erecting the fibre glass walls.
 “This might not be in the project component which was sanctioned by the National highway authorities… So the state will have to fund the walling out of its own resources. But we will do it,” Dar told Greater Kashmir.
 He said the work would be taken up simultaneously once one of the tubes gets ready for traffic.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 7 Aug 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 7 Aug 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 8 Aug 2011 00:00:00 IST