The half-finished bridge at Dargam in Pattan is not merely an isolated inconvenience; it is a glaring symbol of the chronic disconnect between promise and performance that dogs public works across Jammu & Kashmir. Completed in May 2023 at a cost that has already breached the original Rs 5-crore sanction, the span now lies marooned, awaiting the approach roads that would give it meaning. For 13 months and counting, the concrete structure has stood like a monument to squandered opportunity while farmers watch irrigation pipes leak beneath its arches and six surrounding villages remain cut off from the very connectivity the bridge was meant to provide. Unfortunately, this is not an aberration. The Dargam bridge reveals the same fault lines: optimistic cost estimates, piecemeal funding, and agencies allowed to treat sequential components as stand-alone jobs instead of interlocking stages of one functional asset. This fragmented approach breaches every canon of project management. A bridge without access roads is not a “phase” finished-it is a utility denied. Worse, it erodes public confidence and inflates eventual costs: engineers in Pattan point that a revised estimate has been seeking clearance for a year, even as Rs 70 lakh already lapsed for want of timely utilisation. Once revised, the bill will doubtless be higher, punishing taxpayers a second time for official indecision.
The administrative lapse is twofold. First, sanctioning authorities continue to clear projects without ring-fenced funding for the entire work cycle, leaving crucial end-links hostage to shifting budget priorities. Second, monitoring mechanisms remain reactive; disaster is acknowledged only when villagers knock on doors in desperation or ministries face embarrassment in the press.
The Government can still salvage credibility-if it acts with dispatch. The R&B must fast-track approval of the revised estimates and ensure that the tranche covers both the approach roads and the restoration of irrigation lines. Simultaneously, the Finance and Planning departments should mandate escrow-based funding for all future “integrated” projects so that no component stalls midway. Bureaucratic convenience must never again outweigh citizens’ right to basic infrastructure. Only by turning dormant spans into working assets can the administration bridge the widening gap between rhetoric and lived reality.
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