SRINAGAR : The 300-km-long Srinagar-Jammu national highway, connecting the Valley with the rest of the country, was still through for one-way traffic despite rain since last night. Dozens of far flung and remote areas, including those near the Line of Control (LoC) also remained cut off from their respective districts and tehsil headquarters due to snow.
Despite moderate to heavy overnight rain, the highway was through for one-way traffic, a traffic police official told UNI today. He said traffic would ply from Srinagar to Jammu and all vehicles had to cross Qazigund, the gateway of Kashmir, by 1200 hrs.
However, no vehicle would be allowed from Jammu to Srinagar. Meanwhile, hundreds of vehicles, including those carrying passenger, empty trucks and oil tankers, also left different parts of the Valley for Jammu this morning.
The Border Roads Organisation (BRO), responsible for the maintainance of the highway, have been working to clear all hurdles to make the road two way. The highway was damaged at several places in March due to landslides and washing away portion of road, therefor only one-way traffic have been allowed for the past four months to avoid traffic jams and accidents.
The highway used to remain closed frequently during the month of March due to landslides, snow and collapse of mountains resulting in shortage of essentials, particularly vegetables in the Valley.
Prices of vegetables, therefore, remained high despite the fact that a large number of fresh stock had arrived here from Jammu since then.
Meanwhile, the Srinagar-Leh national highway, connecting the Ladakh region with Kashmir, have also been remained closed since December last year due to snow. However, fresh snowfall last week has hampered the snow clearance operation.
Official sources said there were fresh huge snow avalanches on the highway between Drass and Zero Point, particularly near Shaitannallah Gumri, badly affecting the snow clearance operation.
The BRO is also working to clear the snow from both sides of the Zojila pass. The organisation said due very heavy snowfall recently, there were 30 feet to 40 feet snow avalanches following which about 1.5 km road was affected. The highway, was closed in December last year due to accumulation of snow, is expected to reopen during the first week of next month, the BRO officials said.
The Mughal road, connecting the Shopian in south Kashmir with Poonch in Jammu region also remained closed. The snow clearance operation was going on war footing.
Dozens of roads, connecting far flung and remote areas, including those near LoC in Kupwara and Bandipora districts were also closed due to snow. (AGENCIES)
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