The earth and cutting work of road from Government Middle School Mankote to Bani Mohalla is yet to reach halfway in two years with work lying suspended due to forest clearance delay.
The work on the said road project is going on under the Public Works Department (Roads and Building) and has taken up district plan funding.
Locals said that construction work for the road was started two years ago with its take up point near Government Middle School Mankote where it starts from another PMGSY road and it proposed to end at Bani Mohalla where people from tribal Gujjar community are living.
” Road also connects the famous Shiv Parivar cave near Kote Mohalla which is a famous religious-tourist destination.” Vinod Sharma, Mohammad Aslam among other locals from the area said.
They however added that the road is yet to reach halfway of proposed length and only earth cutting work has been done with work lying suspended from last more than an year.
” Earlier we used to ply our vehicles over the road upto the spot to which it has been constructed but now vehicles cannot ply over it.” they said.
Locals underlined their demand for road connectivity in the area and said that Kote and BaniMohalla of Mankote village are deprived of road connectivity even in the 21st century and people living there have to walk for three to four kilometres to reach other nearby roads. When contacted Assistant Executive Engineer of Public Works Department, Sarwar Chowdhary, he said that work for construction of road was allotted under district plan and earth cutting was started.
” We have completed earth cutting upto 1.2 KMs out of 3 kilometres of total stretch but work has been suspended due to delay in forest clearance and paucity of funds.” Officer said.
He informed that forest clearance is being taken up promptly now and we are also proposing to divert some additional funding from the district plan for this project and after both these developments, work for remaining earth work will be started.
“Presently, we are going to make it an all weather road to the point upto which earth work stands completed.” AEE said.