Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 7: Patoli Chowk, on Rehari-Ploura road in Jammu West Assembly constituency has turned accident-prone with the illegal land grabbing by a few traders while the Jammu Municipal Corporation and Traffic Police authorities have turned blind eye towards this issue of urgent public concern.
The former Commissioner Jammu Municipal Corporation, Mandeep Kour, though taking a bold initiative had removed illegal encroachment at this busy Chowk some time back, but these people again encroached upon the area of the road by raising a water tank and displayed their goods there, just to cause most inconvenience to the road users and general public. They also raised two small trees there few years ago, just to maintain their control at the Government land.
Not only this, these people keep their vehicles parked in front of their shops, forcing other public transport and road users to take long and unusual turn just to make passage. There is always traffic jam witnessed at this point and in confusion many vehicles and bikers has collision, causing even fatal injuries to many persons. But these insensitive people have no concern for the accidents and injuries to people.
The senior officials in the District and Divisional Administration, many JMC and Traffic Police officials besides Legislators use this road but they hardly bother to remove this bottle neck where traffic jams is the order of the day. Moreover, due to absence of proper rotary and idle parking in front of the 2-3 shops, this chowk has turned accident- prone.
People of the area have appealed to the Housing and Urban Development Minister, Sat Sharma; JMC Commissioner, Ramesh Kumar (IAS), District Magistrate Jammu, Rajeev Ranjan and IG Traffic, J&K, Basant Rath to take strict action and remove illegal encroachment at this busy chowk by using JCBs and widening this bottle, as the illegal and unwarranted acts of some `anti-social’ elements are posing danger to the precious lives of the people.