No example of abject neglect, apathy and callousness is more eloquent than the Transport Nagar of Jammu. One should visit this place to see and understand what dismal and ruinous shape a neglected locality may take. It is a slur on the name of “Nagar” meaning a city. How come that a cesspool and a slum has been given the name of ‘nagar’? The incredible thing about this slum is how people work there, what they breathe and how they manage life and its business?
Most of the cities in the country, and especially the commercial cities, have, over the years, developed Transport Nagars to serve the purpose of a terminus where commercial activities are carried out and merchandise is transported through trucks. We know of many Transport Nagars in the country. These are mostly over-crowded, very busy and congested places. That has to be the characteristic of a Transport Nagar. However, notwithstanding all this, the municipalities or corporations or other concerned organizations do not abandon them to ruins and dilapidation. There is some semblance of sanitation, sewerage, removing of water logging, power supply, water supply and black-topped roads and streets.
Way back in 1991, Jammu Development Authority announced with great fanfare that Jammu was given a Transport Nagar which would relieve the city of congestion, over-crowding and pollution caused by huge number of trucks playing day and night bringing in merchandise or taking it away from the terminus. Since the terminus was shifted far away on the by-pass, the Transport Nagar was founded. This was a very healthy idea and an urgent requirement, if the city of Jammu was to be spared the enormous pollution.
But alas! the transport township could not maintain its normal contours and could not come up as anything that would attract our attention. Once the transport site was developed comprising about 30 blocks and about 1000 shops including many big, medium and small shops, which are rented to Transporters, depots of multi-national companies, stores of Spare Parts, dhabas and so on, it was left to fend for itself. This huge establishment gradually became no man’s property. Ever since its inception twenty five years ago, no official of the Jammu Municipality or Jammu Municipal Corporation cared to pay a visit and see for himself in what condition the Transport Nagar is today. Its main and by-streets, one and all, are huge potholes, broken and ruined so much so that movement for any vehicle, small or big, has become incredibly hazardous. Take any aspect of civic requirement, streets, pavements, water supply, electric power supply, sanitation, sewerage, sulabh toilets, garbage removal or recycling, including other facilitating services, Transport Nagar present a sordid look. The main feature of a transport nagar is the movement of heavy duty trucks carrying enormous loads and either dumping it there or picking it up from there for removal to other places. Obviously, huge trucks with enormous loads have to ply on the roads leading in or out of transport nagar. Therefore these should have been repaired during short intervals. The main road has turned into trenches and ruins because heavy duty trucks have to ply over it. Most of the sideways of main road as well as by-lanes have been grabbed by encroachers who have set up kiosks and dhabas without proper permission from transport authorities. Litter and polythene is spread in the entire complex. Garbage is deposited in the nearby nullah thus posing serious pollution effect hazardous to human health. It is 25 years that the roads have neither been blacktopped nor potholes repaired. There are no bus stands or shady trees. Drinking water supplied through water pipelines is a rarity. Road electrification is a far cry and illegal parking of trucks, cars and scooters makes things worse. There is no place for drivers to sit and relax while their truck load is being unloaded. There is no worthwhile restaurant where one could sit and eat. The worst is that for such a huge number of people involved in transport business, there are no sulabh toilets, and one or two of these are more eyewash than utility service.
Transport Nagar has area paucity. Shopkeepers dump their stores outside their shops leaving no space for movement of vehicles which must move fast to carry the merchandise for transportation to respective destinations. Approach road to the transport nagar has been encroached by vendors and nobody bring them to book for violating Municipal laws. Vehicle Damaging Factor is the major woe of this locality. Ad the locality has been neglected for last two decades and half, its services stand degraded in all respects. What we suggest is that the government should constitute Transport Nagar improvement committee with representatives from various government agencies and also from the Transporters Union to consider in detail what the requirements are needed to make it a place worth its name. Services like water, electricity, polyclinic, eateries, shady trees, recreational clubs, sulabh facilities, removal of encroachments and regularization of cleanliness and appointment of safai karamcharis have to be provided within a time frame. The committee should also work on the budget aspect and submit the report to the competent authority for consideration. This is the only way how things can be improved. A joint ask force of various departments and agencies will be to be raised exclusively for improvement of the locality.
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