Absence of streetlight on 110 Km Jammu-Pathankot national Highway is making it difficult for motorists and pedestrians to commute in the evening hours on the highway.
Right from Nagrota to Lakhanpur, many major towns including Kunjwani, Bari Brahmana, Vijaypur, Samba, Hiranagar, Chadwal, Rajpura, Dayalachak and Kalibari on the national highway remain in the dark without proper streetlights in place making it tough for the motorists and pedestrians to safely cross the highway stretch.
The statistics available with police show that maximum road accidents are reported every year either in evening hours or in the morning hours. “Headlights of vehicles coming from the opposite direction and absence of street lights often affect the vision of motorists during evening hours resulting in accidents, while pedestrians also have tough time to cross the road,” said a traffic police officer.
According to officials of motor vehicles department, many accidents occur during night hours. “The speedy vehicle, mostly from other states, which are least aware about local topography fail to notice the movement on main road in absence of proper lighting system,” he added.
“Reason of absence of lighting on the highway is due to excessive electricity bills by state government,” said project director NHAI Jammu, Ajay Kumar Razak.
“We had installed lights in the past at some stretches but state government has sent us electric bill on commercial rate which is impossible to bear for the central government department,” said Razak. “To tackle this we had decided that in future local municipalities would be responsible for installation of lights.”