Srinagar, July 17: There is no end to Economic Reconstruction Agency (ERA)’s slow paced work on drainage construction in the south City taking the entire stretch along the highway “hostage”.  In the latest, the slow work on the drainage near the Hyderpora square has badly affected the traffic as gridlocks can be seen lasting for hours.
This is the latest traffic chaos in the area after the earlier one in April and May this year when drainage work on the Airport Road went on at “snail’s pace”. Even though the government had directed the ERA CEO BB VYas to gear up the work, the project executing agency remained reluctant to go on at its “will and wish”.

The latest mess
At a time of peak business in Kashmir, after three summer unrests, the Hyderpora highway was obviously expected to cater to huge traffic flow. But at the same time, the ERA got one of the two highway tubes closed for laying of drain along the bypass.
Sources said given the past embarrassment over the April-May traffic mess on the Airport road, the Traffic Police department was reluctant to allow ERA close on the highway lane.
But following repeated insistence from the project executing agency, the Traffic police is understood to have given ERA 10 days to complete the work.
“We apprized the ERA authorities to get the work completed by the deadline,” said a Traffic official. Over 20 days on, the work is still incomplete.

Wrong side traffic 
The vehicles heading towards the north Kashmir are being forced to ply on the wrong side simple because the west side of the bypass is closed to traffic movement.
And the wrong side traffic flow ships with a risk for the drivers on the congested track as there are no sign boards to inform them about the wrong side traffic. Neither the ERA had got the operational lane divided into two by way of road dividers.
“As per norms, the ERA was supposed to keep caution signs well in place all along the road. It’s a criminal offence to work in a way which is deadly for vehicular traffic,” said a retired engineer requesting not to be named.
His observations carry weight in the light of the fact that several mishaps have taken place on the affected stretch in the past few days while drivers complained of not being aware of the wrong side driving.
Some of them even had brawls with the traffic cops as to why there was so much of mess on the busy highway.

Deadly rocks en-route
As if the project executing agency is working in the primitive times that it has placed boulders in the middle of the road as dividers, the complainants said.
The crude dividers have come at the cost of damage to many vehicles while some of the drivers even met with accidents.

Officials speak
When contacted the SP Traffic Srinagar Maqsood Ul Zaman admitted that the ERA had been given “around a fortnight” to complete the work.
“But that doesn’t mean we will allow vehicles to ply on the western tube which is affected due to drainage work until its completed,” he added.
He asked the travellers to bear with the situation.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 17 Jul 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 17 Jul 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:00:00 IST