*Yatris also free to visit other tourist places
Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, July 1: In view of the beginning of Shri Amarnathji Yatra 2023 today, a high-level meeting of both Civil and Police administration was today held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta to review the traffic scenario on NH-44 including that of the roads leading to Pahalgam and Baltal.
On the occasion, Dr Mehta maintained that J&K has moved much ahead and our approach towards the management of affairs should be facilitative. He impressed upon the concerned to streamlineboth tourists and civilian traffic along with the yatris for their movement on the National Highway.
He asked for maintaining a reasonable gap between LMVs and HMVs so that none face any difficulty in reaching their destinations. He observed that the highway today is in much better shape with four lanes and tunnels except few difficult stretches. He reflected that all this should have the desired impact on ground. He asked the concerned authorities to perform their roles efficiently.
The Chief Secretary even directed the senior officers from the Traffic Department to closely monitor and supervise the performance of their subordinates through field inspections themselves on the ground. He advised them to completely take the affairs in their hands and decide for themselves about the effective use of the resources at hand.
He enquired about the use of traffic management paraphernalia like installation of CCTVs on National Highway, Motor bikes, interceptors and their outcomes. He called for a detailed report to be submitted to him about the same within a couple of days. He also emphasised on taking full advantage of Integrated Command and Control Centres established in both the capital cities for better management of traffic. He asked for fully switching to e-Challaning in the city limits for having better control over the traffic and its violators.
Regarding the movement of yatra and other tourists, the Chief Secretary said that all of them should be facilitated and there should be no undue restrictions on anyone. He stated that adherence to time discipline in terms of ROP is the part of SOP that is largely aimed at ensuring safety of one and all. He emphasised on creating ample awareness about these timings at all the base camps including tourist locations of Pahalgam and Sonamarg etc so that people are able to comply readily and enjoy visits to the breath-taking locales of J&K.
As far as the satisfaction level of general tourists is concerned, Dr Mehta instructed both the Divisional Commissioners to take RAS feedback from at least 100 of them daily on both the yatra axis about their travel experience. He asked for recording the hourly volume of traffic from Jammu at major diversions like that of Nagrota, Domail, Udhampur, Nashri Tunnel, Ramban, Banihal, Navyug Tunnel, Qazigund, Mirbazar, Khanabal, Sangam, Pampore till reaching Srinagar to have insights into it for making strategies accordingly.
The other instructions passed on by the Chief Secretary during the meeting included providing opportunities to the locals to do trade as per the past practice, strictly complying with RFID based registrations, restriction on overcrowding of passenger vehicles besides taking all the measures of waste collection and cleanliness enroute, in and around the basecamps for pleasant experience of all the devotees.
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