THE government decision to construct shops on Zaina Kadal bridge had made this historic wooden landmark vulnerable to fire and was even feared to collapse, observers said.
 They said the construction of shops hadn’t only vandalized the heritage of the bridge –named after its founder and 15th century emperor Sultan Zain-Ul-Abideen –but had made it prone to damage of sorts, particularly fire.
 
THE EXPERT LOGIC
 Explaining their point, the observers said the business units are most vulnerable to fire and any such incident on this bridge made of prized deodar could trigger devastation.
 “This bridge is a first class well seasoned and preserved wooden structure and it’s most vulnerable to fire for that matter,” said Shafat Ahmed Reshi, who comes from Town Planning background.
 Otherwise also, he said, the bridge was feared to collapse given any constant load in shape of shops over there.
 “The Zaina Kadal bridge is a wooden framed structure constructed or meant to take the movement forces (pressure) created by moving vehicular traffic and pedestrians only and not designed for concentrated load or dead load which our most efficient engineers in government had proposed over this poor bridge by way of constructing commercial business units,” Reshi added.

ADMIN CAUGHT NAPPING
 The Roads and Building department, JKPCC and other agencies associated with the development seemingly missed to use “technical brains”, even though the development was being monitored by a high level committee.
 “They either forgot to take load of the structures, goods in those shops, persons who visit those busy shops, vehicular traffic and pedestrians weight in to account or there was some other pressure,” said a retired civil engineer requesting not to be named.

CONTRADICTORY TIMELINE
Experts on heritage were all fire over the construction of shops terming its “worst vandalization of the bridge.”
 The Jammu and Kashmir Project Construction Corporation was assigned the task to construct 20 odd shops on the bridge. The JKPCC people were pleading that the shops were being constructed to rehabilitate the shopkeepers whose establishments on the right of the river towards Vakil Manzil are to be removed for proposed road widening and construction of a new bridge there.
 The government insisted that the shops were being constructed temporarily. But given the past experience where traders have been awaiting permanent rehabilitation for years, the Zaina Kadal vandalization was feared  stay there for decades atleast.

ZAINA KADAL-LAL CHOCKING LINK
 The official who pitched idea for the shop line construction on Zaina Kadal bridge is understood to be the same who some three years back conceived the plan  for construction of concrete park in the middle of Lal Chowk thereby depriving the historic City centre of its free road space. 
 But unlike the present Zaina Kadal development, the NC led government that time went ahead with the alleged chocking of Lal Chowk despite severe public criticism and inconvenience it has been causing in vehicular traffic flow!

Lastupdate on : Mon, 12 Mar 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:00:00 IST