Srinagar, Apr 6: The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Friday said it would resist the state government’s plan to construct a concrete cantilever around Dal Lake to facilitate expansion of Boulevard.
“Enough is enough. This government has already done incalculable damage to the ecology and environment of Kashmir and is carrying forward the National Conference agenda of destroying what God has bestowed this place with. We will not allow this disastrous plan to take off and will organize public resistance to it”, PDP chief spokesman Naeem Akhtar said in a statement while reacting to the news report about the government’s proposal to construct a concrete cantilever around Dal Lake for road widening.
The spokesperson said Dal Lake had been a victim of the greed and political manipulations of NC politicians for the last so many decades “but now the party was stretching its destruction agenda to intolerable levels.”
“The people of Kashmir are already facing the fall out of NC actions which have resulted in the disappearance of green patches and water bodies and now the R&B department has come up with this virtual bombshell that could be treated as a criminal act in any modern society, Akhtar said and added there are many alternatives that could be explored to achieve a better traffic flow around Dal without disturbing its ecology any further. “One of the possibilities is to construct a tunnel under the Kohi Sulieman or Shakaracharya mount that could obviate the need for disturbing the present Boulevard scene.
Akhtar said another option to ease traffic around Dalgate without fiddling with Dal Lake area could be to widen the Gupkar link and upgrade it into a four lane avenue. Should such a bold decision be taken which will involve some sacrifice by the ruling family, Boulevard could even be turned into a pedestrian mall sparing Dal some measure of pollution.
Accusing the NC led government of having lost the capacity to think, PDP spokesperson said, “the party had outsourced the city to some politicians of extremely low intellectual calibre who were destroying its natural and man-made heritage without any sense of remorse.” He said all the works carried out in the name of development were actually contributing to the mess that the city has been turned into.
“Works are being conceptualized only to benefit contractors of choice without ever thinking about the crisis of civic amenities, traffic, drainage or roads faced by the people. It is a slap on the face of the government that a dignitary like Anil Ambani had to abandon a trip to Pahalgam because of traffic congestion,” Akhtar said and wondered what impression this news could have created across the world about the so-called preparations of this administration to receive a million plus tourists.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 6 Apr 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 6 Apr 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 7 Apr 2012 00:00:00 IST