There is no end to traffic mess along the Srinagar-Jammu highway, a number of commuters said on Monday, exposing the lackadaisical approach of the traffic police in manning the vital road.
The nearly 300-km-long highway—the only surface link of Kashmir with rest of the world—was thrown open on Sunday for one-way traffic after its three-day closure due to landslides and shooting stones.
Earlier, the highway was intermittently closed for nearly 10 days, causing massive inconvenience to thousands of intending and stranded commuters.
On Monday, the highway was open only for heavy motor vehicles which were asked to move from Jammu towards Srinagar with essential commodities. However, an official this evening said the road was closed following a fresh landslide in Ramban.
Drivers who plied their vehicles on the highway Monday slammed the chronic traffic mess on the road, especially between Ramban and Ramsu areas.
A group of truck drivers told Greater Kashmir that traffic policemen are not being deployed at “sensitive” places, where traffic jams lasting hours take place almost every day.
At places where shirking of road has caused bottlenecks, vehicles move at a snail’s pace, they said.
Here, the drivers said, traffic jams are often witnessed due to absence of traffic policemen.
At Gangroo, they said, a single-lane road has been excavated by the beacon and load carriers are cross the portion with great difficulty owing to traffic jams.
Several commuters complained that traffic police have failed to regulate and streamline vehicular movement between Ramban and Ramsu areas.