Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, May 11: The State High Court today directed the Chief Secretary to file an affidavit indicating why the nature of bridge built along river Jhelum has been changed and castigated the executing agency for sloppy work.
It may be mentioned here that the mortarable bridge along river Jhelum at Presentation Convent School at Rajbagh which is under construction was changed by the authorities to foot bridge and a new bridge out of plan was erected parallel to the Abdullah Bridge.
It is after court’s intervention, the construction of new bridge has been stopped when court passed order of stay on construction of the bridge and directed the authorities to go ahead with the construction of Bridge as per the original plan.
Advocate General submitted before the Division Bench of Chief Justice Badar Durez Ahmad and Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey that CS may apprise the court about the issue and it is after the submissions of AG, the court directed the CS to file his affidavit in suo-moto proceedings indicating under what circumstances the nature and character of the bridge has been changed.
Court has already directed the concerned authorities to proceed ahead with the construction of the Bridge (but not Foot Bridge) as per original plan of 1981 by completing it and throwing it open for the traffic use.
Court has expressed its serious concern on the functioning of the concerned executing agency by sitting over on the small construction for years and had warned the authorities and officers of the concerned department for their sloppy and dithering work on the construction of the bridge.
The suo-moto cognizance was taken by the court in a media report highlighting how the State Government was hell-bent upon destroying the ecology of Srinagar city and throw to ruins the historical heritage site-the Emporium Gardens-besides abandoning a well thought of and almost half-complete engineering plan at the cost of huge sums and showing scorn to a decision of High Court in another Public Interest Litigation.
In its report, the Registry of the High Court had submitted to the Chief Justice that the matter was of great public importance which required immediate intervention by the Court in public interest.
“The matter certainly sheds a great light on how the Government is adamant and bent upon destroying the ecology of the City of Srinagar in general and river Jhelum in particular,” the report of registry read.
Chief Town Planner, in one of his reports stated that the implementation of Project for ‘Improvement to Road Communication System in Srinagar City’ was approved by the Government on 13.10.1981 and the Project envisaged construction of new roads and improvement, up-gradation and widening of some existing roads and construction of new bridges.
In the Master Plan of 1971-91 for the city, there was vision for the North-South corridor connecting the southern parts of the city with the core and northern areas and decision was taken by the Government to construct a 2-Lane Abdullah Bridge connecting TRC with Rajbagh. The bridge has only a two lane approach on the Rajbagh side.
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