Sir,
Yet another road mishap near Marothi has taken a toll of about thirty precious lives including that of the driverdriver of the ill fated bus on the Sudhmahadev-Latti road. Besides, many others are struggling for lives in hospitals. The mishap is reported to have occured when the driver of the illfated 42- seater heavily overloaded bus carrying about 80 passangers lost control on the steering and the bus rolled down into a deep gorge. Generally,it is the bad potholed roads or overspeeding/overloading by the drivers which leads to such mishaps.Unfortunately,road accidents in our state have become so common that we have reconciled to the fact that such mishaps that are a part of everyday life.Our roads are potholed and a few day ago, The High Court of J&K had intervened on a PIL and directed the Government to make J&K National Highway motorable within a stipulated time.
It is strange that despite charging huge road tax and toll tax at Lakhanpur,Lower Munda and now at Ban Plaza, the condition of our roads,especially the peripheral ones remains miserable. Everyother day, there are protest demonstrations by the residents of different areas demanding repair of the potholed roads and many a time photographs of potholed roads appear in newspapers but all this has little effect on the concerned authorities until some mishap occurs.Either there is paucity of funds or the negligence of the concerned authirities with regard to the repairing of the damaged road.In both ways,it is the public which suffers.The drivers of Minibuses drive rashly and sometimes, it is the overspeeding and overtaking that cause accidents. What happens is that drivers of minibuses drive at a snail’s speed until they sight some other minibus following them and they pick up the speed putting the lives of the passangers at great risk. If asked to avoid rash driving,they enter into arguments and challange the commuters to do anything against them. Surprisingly, the cops in blue act as helpless and mute spectators. However,it is both the drivers and the commuters suffer and face a lot of inconvenience because of the potholed roads.
Therefore, it is the duty of the Government to fix responsibility and accountability on the officers entrusted with the responsibility of maintaining the proper condition of the roads and release sufficient funds for the upkeep of the roads to avoid inconvenience to the public and recurrence of mishaps.
Yours etc….
Ashok Sharma,
Flat No 4,Housing Colony,Udhampur
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