The most fragile, frail and frangible sector on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway is Ramban – Nashri area. The characteristics of this area, besides being unpredictable in the case of even a slight downpour is well understood and taken virtually as fait accompli but that it should pose apprehensions and behave as a potent threat to the lives of the people in the shape of landslides and shooting stones even in dry and normal weather conditions should really be a cause of alarm. Not only taking unfortunately a toll of lives but causing long traffic jams and hindrances due to blocking of the road has becomes a routine affair by this patch of mountainous area of Ramban. Agreed, a lot of improvement in the shape of widening, tunnelling, face-lifting and other measures on the Jammu -Srinagar National Highway has made it the enjoyable, hassles free and distance and time saving motor-able road, however, the fact remains that the entire belt of Ramban -Nashri area continues to pose problems and difficulties due to the peculiarity of its geological nature. Its soft shooting stones getting detached from their places on the soft mountainous area often fall on the main road, otherwise busiest in all seasons, causing all types of problems including loss of lives, should be a cause of concern.
Perhaps, to mitigate the sufferings on the particular area under reference, widening and making it four laned, has in fact created more problems than solving any. Continuous digging and interference with the fragility of this mountainous area has caused a spate of problems both for the residents of the area as well as for the users of the road. We learn that the agency that bagged the contract of undertaking this work and otherwise operating under National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), has further sub-let the job to a local firm believed to be scantly or ill equipped both by knowledge and experience as also by possessing of appliances and particular machinery needed for the work. That has resulted in sub-standard, slow paced, and bereft of expertise laced work on this highway project. The immediate fallout of this phenomenon has been frequent closure of the road especially between Ramban town-Cafeteria Morh- Mehar – Battery Cheshma areas where in addition to other vehicles, those trucks carrying essential goods and even ambulances get stuck up for hours together.
We would take it not so serious during normal times due to obvious reasons but even during lockdown when there is absolutely no pressure of any kind on this belt, the shooting stones and landslides very frequently take place. The other impact of long jams on account of blocking of road is generation of lot of smoke from the held up and slow moving vehicles polluting the atmosphere, the immediate victims being the shopkeepers and the residents of Ramban and Chandrakot areas while the fallout of the pressure of road clearance results in the debris of landslides etc being thrown direct in the river. There is one more problem which contributes to the road mess and that being potholes created due to damage to road on account of landslides etc where drivers wheel their vehicles in zig-zag way to avoid these potholes which throws the movement of vehicles out of gear. At least, side by side, if these potholes could be taken care of, much of inconvenience faced by motorists could be avoided.
Whatever measure of comfort and smooth driving on the vast stretch of the National Highway is enjoyed by the drivers , the same gets neutralised rather ”bad tasted” while encountering the problems on entering this sector . The entire area of Ramban Banihal needs a permanent solution which experts from allied fields alone could find out. We are conscious that the pinch of non – availability of labour force largely contributes presently to the road in this area not getting day to day maintenance and care as due to corona virus pandemic , the labour in hundreds has moved out of Jammu and Kashmir but the authorities must pay preferred attention to the problem and resolve it on a permanent basis.
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