Srinagar, Aug 8: Despite frequent gridlocks on the Pantha Chowk highway, the Roads and Building department has failed to repair a alternative link road, which could decongest rush on the Srinagar-Jammu highway stretch, by the time this single lane is widened to four lanes.

THE PROPOSAL
 Sources said given the complaints of chronic gridlocks on the Pantha Chowk highway and no signs of immediate widening of the three odd mile road stretch to four lane, the Traffic police had approached the R&B with an interim proposal that the link road traversing Pampore and Lasjan be repaired so that it could be utilized for the movement of heavy vehicles.
 This, as per Traffic police officials, would considerably reduce vehicular rush on the highway thereby providing respite from traffic jams, which have become a routine on the highway.
 Sources said the SP Traffic Srinagar Maqsood Ul Zaman had shot a letter to the R&B authorities seeking immediate macadamization of the dilapidated link road.
 But the R&B seems to have slept over the issue like most other pending proposals including the much needed macadamization of the Rawal Pora-Airport Road link.

THE PROBLEM
 Gridlocks which last for hours at the Pantha Chowk square are almost a routine putting thousands of commuters including Jammu bound passengers to inconvenience. The chaos is worst at the peak hours when gridlocks stretch to around five kilometers.
 Sundays look even more worse when visitors aspiring for a picnic in south Kashmir areas like Pahalgam, Daksum and Kokernag have to spent most part of the day in gridlocks amid deafening horns and vehicular pollution.
 As for the rest, the office goers and patients being ferried to and from south Kashmir areas are routine suffers.

WIDENING DELAY
 The National Highway Authorities of India was supposed the get the entire highway widened to four lane. But this crucial stretch of mere three odd kilometer length, between the Pantha Chowk and Zeewan continues to be single lane.

THE DELAY EXCUSE
 Despite repeated attempts the R&B Chief Engineer didn’t respond to phone calls. But a lower rung R&B official said it wasn’t mandatory for the agency to implement suggestions of Traffic police. “We have our own way of doing things. Projects need to be conceived after a lot of paper work and DPR. Things cannot be done instantly on the directions of police force because our working is different from them,” the official pleading anonymity told Greater Kashmir.

THE ‘LAZY’ FACTOR
For R&B, a department which has failed to complete 18 month Hyderpora flyover project even in five years, taking things at “snail’s pace” could be a routine. But its delay in getting the Lasjan link road macadamized is putting Aam Aadmi to inconvenience, everyday.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 8 Aug 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 8 Aug 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 9 Aug 2011 00:00:00 IST