Hell of a Highway

Srinagar-Jammu Highway is in ‘worst ever condition’. This comes from co-chairman PHD Chamber, Jammu-chapter and president of Hotel and Restaurant Association, Katra, Rakesh Wazir. According to Wazir there is total mismanagement, chaos and worst ever condition of road as well as traffic management, particularly on the stretch between Nashri Tunnel to Banihal Tunnel; similarly between Udhampur to Nashri Tunnel. This statement once again brings focus to a perennial problem. The difficulty of travelling on this road has gained a folk character in Kashmir. Since this highway is the only surface link to the outside world, the entire movement of goods and people is dependant on it. Though the air travel has picked up in recent years, but that is no substitute for road connectivity. In the last month itself we witnessed the closure of this road for many days, and also some worst cases of traffic jamming. In this situation the government must take some urgent steps so that the traffic movement is streamlined. True, that there are some difficult patches and it is not easy to solve the problem. The weather conditions are not in our control. But what can easily be done is to employe better and efficient ways of traffic management on the highway. Another measure that must be taken by the government is to monitor the air fares. It has been observed that when there is rush of passengers from Jammu to Srinagar rates go through the roof. Similarly when there is time for people to move from Srinagar to the rest of the places in India, rates touch peaks. Till the time we have more tunnels coming up on this highway and the travel is smoothened in terms of actual driving from one end to another, and it shrinks in terms of time, government should press on the air service providers to have genuine air fares so that people can take this alternate route. But all said and done, the real, and the only solution, is to speed up the work on this road to make it all weather, and smooth.