Suhail Bhat
SRINAGAR, Sept 5: There seems to be no end in sight to the traffic woes being faced by commuters here in the city centre as the completion of the first link of Jahangir Chowk – Rambagh Flyover misses the August deadline.
The 2.4-kilometer flyover was expected to reduce the traveling time from Jahangir Chowk to Rambagh from 28 minutes to 2.5 minutes but despite missing several deadlines, authorities have failed to complete the project. With an estimated project cost of Rs 350 crores, the project was aimed to ease the burden of traffic jam in the city but a delay in its completion is adding to the travel miseries of the people.
With the assistance of Asian Development Bank, the project was started in the year 2013 and Economic Reconstruction Agency (ERA) was given the responsibility to execute the project. An official at ERA said the delay in completion of the first link was because the guarders for Rambagh Bridge had to be cast near the site.
“It is a time-consuming process and is the only option available for us. But we have employed all our men and machinery to speed up the work. I agree there will be a delay of 10-15 days”, he said. He added other reason for the delay was the laborers left early for the festival of Eid.
“The laborers left to celebrate the Eid on the last week of August and that further delayed the project. We have deployed all men and machinery to the cause and the first link will be completed by the end of this month,” he said. Another official at ERA said that the project faced roadblock in the unrest of 2016 as work was suspended for more than five months. He said that soon after the agitation began, the skilled outstation workers fled Kashmir due to fear and majority of them did not return.
“We had 800 highly skilled workers involved in the flyover construction until July 8 last year but soon after the unrest, they fearing for their lives, fled Valley. Although the situation improved they were not ready to return. One of the factors for this was harsh winter,” he said, adding that due to these factors the work on the project got slowed down even after resumption in the aftermath of unrest last year.
Earlier, the deadline for the completion of the project was September 2016 – three years after it was started. The work on the project has been divided into 4 sections – A, B, C and D. With the work remaining incomplete, there is no end in sight to the traffic mess on Jahangir Chowk-Rambagh axis, resulting in unprecedented difficulties to thousands of commuters every day traveling on this route.
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