March-April showers with intermittent high speed winds of smaller durations are a common feature in this part of the country which more often, results in the blocking of Jammu Srinagar National Highway due to landslides and other problems. This results in disruption of usual traffic for days together and this time, due to sinking of small portion of an area of Dalwas at Ramban, the road continues to remain blocked for five days in a row. As many as 1500 vehicles are reported to be stranded, mostly trucks carrying supplies of essential commodities to the valley where the pinch of non availability of essentials like fuel etc has been started to be felt. Not only this, the portion which has sunk has resulted in rendering homeless, at least 28 families and another 11 families falling in danger zone too have been shifted to safer places. People usually under such circumstances, feeling the pinch of the unforeseen happening especially when they are rendered homeless, agitate to get better and preferred attention of the authorities. While their feelings and sufferings can only be felt and realised also in every aspect, it is at the same time expected not to hope for miraculous speedy resolution of issues which are bound to take some time. Blame games and allied issues at critical junctures do not help in settling issues.
It is, however, nice of the administration in having settled the issue of compensation to the affected unfortunate families, arranged shelters, food, some necessary relief etc only after which, they “permitted” the repair works to be started. In addition to the timely help rendered by the District administration, National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has been asked to provide help to the affected families. District Red Cross too will be providing some help to the affected families. It would not be out of place to mention that if road widening work was quite necessary to be started for smooth traffic movement, associated side effects thereof should have not been ignored. The residents, who have been rendered homeless due to the patch of 500 metres of the mountainous area having caved in, allege that had road widening not been undertaken, their dwellings would have not been ‘consumed’ by the disaster. It means expert advice was not sought about the fragility or vulnerability of the soil which on most part of this road, especially between Ramban and Ramsu is quite sensitive in nature. Although the designated agency, National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has resumed the work of necessary repairs but the same are getting hindered on account of another difficulty, that of the inclement weather conditions, where more rains for a few days are expected.
While this time, extraordinary conditions are prevailing in Jammu and Kashmir like other parts of the country due to corona virus threat, so many vehicles and inmates therein held up including empty trucks returning from Kashmir stuck at various places en-route, put extra strain on the administration in arranging the repairing work to be completed as soon as possible. We learn that the administration under the directions of the Chief Secretary is monitoring the developments in order to ensure early repairs to restart the traffic on the road. However, to meet such eventualities, especially at sensitive places on the road between Ramban, Ramsu and Banihal, some shelter cum food points needed to be built to accommodate stranded people in such circumstances instead of their remaining confined in respective vehicles. Such types of humps and impediments on this highway cannot be ruled out in future by any account although by constructing more tunnels, lot of improvement both in the flow of traffic as well as saving of travel time has taken place. Anyway, it is hoped that within a day or two, the highway would be reopened and stranded vehicles allowed on priority to move to reach their destinations.
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