Construction of new bridge moving at snail’s pace
Waseem Ahmad
SRINAGAR, Nov 24: The single lane bridge at Larkipora area in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district is causing frequent traffic halts, leading to inconvenience to commuters.
The bridge over Nallah Bringi was constructed decades ago and connects several villages including some famous tourist destinations like Verinag and National Highway as well.
As per locals, they have to wait for hours as there is no regulation of traffic on the bridge and vehicles are stranded on one side of the bridge while vehicles pass from the other side.
They said the bridge has became a major inconvenience for the people during the harvest season as the heavy vehicles loaded with fruits are often stuck on the bridge, thereby causing hardships to the commuters.
“The single lane bridge has become a cause of concern for the people. Vehicles are often stuck on the bridge and we have to wait for hours in the traffic jam. Sometimes even pedestrians have to go back half way if heavy vehicles are crossing it. During harvest season, when heavy vehicles loaded with fruits pass through, one has to wait for an hour to cross the bridge due to which the commuters and particularly patients suffer,” Mudasir Ahmad, a resident of Dialgam said, adding, “Government should at least place one or two policeman on the either sides of the bridge who will regulate the traffic manually.”
He said keeping in view the problems faced by people, authorities sanctioned a new bridge adjacent to the old single lane bridge several years ago but the construction of that was first delayed and now the work is going on at snail’s pace.
The locals alleged that the contractor of the bridge has outsourced the project with the sub-contractors and they are not doing their work seriously. “The project has been outsourced by the contractor with several sub-contractors and there is no coordination between them. The sub-contractors often halt the construction work due to non-availability of funds and blame the main contractor for not releasing the funds to them,” they alleged
However, the Roads and Buildings (R&B) department, executing agency for the newly constructed bridge claimed that the construction work is going on and major portion of the bridge has been completed. “The construction work is going at good pace. The civil works is on the final stage and we will soon start the super structure of the bridge. I personally visited the site few days ago and about 90 percent civil works are complete,” Basharat Jaleel, Executive Engineer, R&B Department said.
About the outsourcing of the contract, Jaleel while refuting the claims of the locals said that the main contractor is personally doing the work and may be someone has been appointed for supervising the project there but the project has not been outsourced.
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