Since purchasing power has increased and people have the compulsion of mobility, huge number of vehicles are flooding the streets of the city of Jammu. Although the city has expanded across the Tawi and almost on all the sides, yet over-crowding and traffic congestion has made life in the city miserable. The BC Road is the main traffic lane linking Jammu with the rest of the State and the rest of the country especially Ladakh to north and Punjab to south. Besides private vehicles, we have enormous number of buses, taxis, autos, Sumos/ Tempo Traveler, light and heavy trucks, scooters and motor bikes all plying on the main BC Road. The main routes of traffic are Jammu-Pathankot, Jammu-Rajouri/ Poonch, Jammu-Banihal/ Srinagar, Jammu-Katra/ Reasi and Jammu-Udhampur-Ramnagar. For all these routes Bus Stand BC road is the terminal. One can imagine what a chaotic situation Bus Station strip presents. Right from the Bakhshi Nagar crossing to Talab Tiloo/Dogra crossing, there is unending traffic congestion and one feels miserable to travel by a city bus.
The real bottleneck is the BC Road at bus stand. The road has been converted into vehicle stand for Ban Talab, and Taxi and Sumo stand for Jammu- Srinagar link with the result that hundreds of vehicles are parked along the road which result in incredible traffic congestion. Vehicle owners have refused to move to new bus stand Khanpur on the pretext that it is ten kilometers away from Jammu Bus Stand. Same is the case with Paloura Bus Stand. The question is whether the Government means to deliver or not and remain subject to the whims of the bus owners. In all developing cities and towns in the country, bus stands are made outside the boundaries of the town. Jammu is not an exception. The point is that old Jammu city is perched atop a hillock and there is no plain land available for making bus stands. This is a compulsion with the authorities to move the new bus stands away from the heart of the city. The Government had even offered reasonable compensation to the bus owners for extra kilometers from the main city. Even then they are not prepared to shift. We think ultimately it will be becoming a law and order situation if vested interest is not contained. There are no two opinions that there is large scale political interference and vested interests do not allow shifting of the bus stand because they have shops and thriving business which could be affected.
The Government has to remember that everything related to development of the State and the country is not to be measured with the rod of local or regional politics. Development has to move out of political impact and it is for the people and not for the vested interests. Eight years is a long time to let Jammu people suffer owing to traffic jams and snarls and at the same time be exposed to air and noise pollution. Surprisingly, whenever a VIP has to pass by, traffic police shuts down traffic on the entire stretch from Rehari Chowk to Dogra Chowk. How can bigwigs know what the traffic snarl on the B.C. Road near bus stand means?
Eight years ago a new Bus Stand for idle buses was proposed at Khanpur near Nagrota Bypass for Banihal Route buses and another was proposed near Paloura for Rajouri-Poonch route buses. Jammu Development Authority (JDA) created this facility on nearly 100 kanals of area and also raised around 30 shops there. However, it is lying unused for last about four years. The Administration has utterly failed to shift the idle buses from Jammu Bus Stand and BC Road to Khanpur despite severe criticism by the media. Over Rs 15 crores of public exchequer is said to have gone waste as the Bus operators have refused to move about 10 kms away from Jammu Bus stand. It is a reflection on the planners. When authorities were contacted, they make incoherent response. Sometimes they say that shifting is the job of the Traffic Department and not of JDA and sometimes they say they have no money to meet the expenditures on shifting which are to the tune of 40 crore rupees. Amusingly we are also told that everything is in order and the shifting of the bus stand and clearing the congestion is a matter of some months. Authorities are not ready to come out where the malaise lies. We suggest that the Government activate all concerned authorities, Traffic Department, JDA, Police Department, Revenue Department and others to draw a final detailed plan of removing the unauthorized vehicle stands along the BC Road, shift the bus stand to its new destinations, ensure strict traffic rules and clear the BC Road of jams and traffic snarls permanently. Trees have to be planted on both sides of the road with broad footpaths and encroachers and rehris wallas should be disallowed to halt at any place along the BC Road. Likewise the huge traffic congestion at Jewel Chowk has to be done away with by constructing subways. This is a subject that should be close to the heart of the Jammu City Master Plan.
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