Rajouri, Sep 5: The Khawas Gunda road in Rajouri district is closed for last 12 years.
Reports said that tousands of people from Khawas tehsil areas are up in arms against Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) as the main road connecting the tehsil headquarter with Moughla and other parts of Kalakote sub division is lying closed for last 12 days due to a massive landslide.
The road is lying close at Lathi chowk in the area. Local population has warned of protest in near future if this road link is not restored in next few days.
People from area said that the Khawas tehsil is the remote tehsil in the district and it is connected with half of the district via Kotranka Khawas road and with remaining other via Khawas Moughla road. These are the only two main road links of this remote region.
They said that vehicular movement on Khawas Moughla road is suspended for last 12 days after a massive landslide had hit the road in area and around one hundred meters stretch of road got washed away.
Lucky Thakur, a local inhabitant of the area said that Khawas tehsil is presently facing severe difficulty in terms of surface connectivity due to closure of this important road.
“People in this remote region used to move to Kotranka, Budhal or Rajouri district headquarter via Kotranka Khawas road but they always prefer moving via closed road to go towards Kalakote, Teryath, Sunderbani, Nowshera and even Jammu,” Thakur said. He added that presently road is lying road and people have to spend almost double time in their journey.
Other people of the area also hit hard at PMGSY for its failure to ease the suffering of people stating that the department has failed to even initiate the work to get the road restored by building temporary track at landslide affected portion.
Meanwhile, Executive Engineer of PMGSY Budhal division, Imtiaz Ahmed who visited the landslide affected region on Tuesday said that directions have been issued to the concerned Assistant Executive Engineer and Junior Engineer to take up work for road restoration and to build a temporary track at the site and to make road functional.
