Prof. (Dr.) V. S. Verma
The other day, Deputy Chief Minister, Nirmal Singh reiterated commitment of the Government to develop Jammu as one of the model and modern cities of the country, leaving tangible impact on housing and urban sector.
It is pertinent to mention here that the half-hearted approach of the Government to develop Jammu as model town would lead to nowhere and the Utopian commitments and hollow slogans have already done more harm than good. It is well known and admitted fact that roads are the lifeline of today’s lifestyle and foremost requisite of development, may it be a city, town or a village. Almost all roads and byroads of Jammu city are in dilapidated condition and one cannot have a smooth drive to one’s destination; there is every chance that either your vehicle will get a snag or you cramp your muscles or even get your bones jerked. The roads in Jammu, the winter capital, were never in such a bad shape during any regime than they are now. This also hampers the smooth flow of traffic and adds another reason of frequent traffic jams. Traffic jams have become the order of the day on all roads and every time of the day in Jammu city, which gets worse during festival days and you never reach your relatives and friends in time. The situation gets worse during the period when Jammu hosts Durbar move in winter. The traffic scenario in Jammu is going from bad to worse day by day. If the governments really want to improve the situation in Jammu, few things need to be well understood before making planning to streamline the traffic. Matadors are the lifeline of Jammu city providing most popular, cheap and easy means of transportation ferrying thousands of local passengers to their destinations every day. But Matadors are posing the biggest threat to frequent traffic logjams in the city due to the fact that they drop every passenger to his/her choice stoppage at his/her convenience without caring for becoming the reason for a jam at every stop since most of the roads in Jammu are narrow and do not provide free passage to the following vehicle and we do not have the specified stoppages and lay-byes carved out en route for the passenger buses/Matadors. This system is being followed since half a century or even more when the traffic on the city roads was scarce and did not lead to logjams. The reason to this is an open secret as only few persons in Jammu had a car or a bike compared to today when every third person has a car or a bike or both. The Government should seriously ponder upon these practical difficulties and should devise proper stops for Matadors. The situation becomes still more cumbersome when there is a beeline of Matadors camping in the narrow roads or chowks for boarding or even waiting for passengers, the busiest chowk of the city, the most congested being the Bikram Chowk. For maintaining free flow of traffic, the stoppages of Matadors should be carved out beyond the chowks and the stops of the Matadors of different routes should be well defined as in Delhi. The traffic police should have the commitment to their duty to compel the Matador drivers to follow the traffic rules. Good roads and the commitment to follow traffic rules would improve the traffic scenario on the city roads.
With the ever burgeoning number of automobiles and lack of parking places compels one to park one’s car or bike on the road itself adding another reason to traffic congestion and logjam. In the absence of large open spaces, raising multi-tier parking lots in different areas of Jammu city would offer relief to the free flow of traffic devoid of logjams and provide succor to Jammuites. Moreover, the roads in Jammu city have not been expanded proportionate to manifold increase in traffic, but have remained the same as were half a century from now, except road widening of few roads only, whereas the traffic has increased more than hundred times. How can we expect free traffic flow?
All previous Governments have done something, though insufficient to the gravity of the problem. It was the visionary approach of Jagmohan Malhotra, the renowned town planner and former Governor of J&K State who carved out the only and the most popular flyover bypassing the free traffic flow from B.C. Road to Tawi bridge. One can imagine what would be the traffic scenario on B.C. Road had there been no flyover. It is only the visionary approach that will lead to make us think of the traffic scenario 20-30 years from now and beyond.
I suggest that the Government should invite persons from across the society along with top bureaucrats to see through their eyes a traffic scenario 20-30 years from now and beyond under the umbrella of the Transport Ministry of the State, take meaningful measures like widening of roads, making out proper stoppages of Matadors, providing lay-byes at Matador stops, carving out bypass roads for diverting heavy traffic to different routes prior to entering in the city, provide parking lots, introducing metro train, penalizing wrong parking and other steps willfully to provide comfort not only to the residents of Jammu, but also to the ever increasing number of tourists visiting Jammu from other states of the country which will unequivocally go a long way in promoting religious tourism in the State which is the backbone of the state. Similar steps should also be taken for Srinagar city, the summer capital of the State and the most cherished tourist spot in the country. It will make our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi’s slogan “tourism, not terrorism” meaningful and not a hollow slogan in the state and make backbone of the State stronger.
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