Chaos on highway as NHAI fails to repair it

Excelsior Correspondent

Srinagar, Oct 29: The National Highway Authority of India has failed to repair the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway in Pampore area leading to huge traffic jams.
Hundreds of trucks and passenger vehicles get stranded everyday on this portion of the highway where the movement of the traffic is very slow. The highway was damaged in last month’s floods.
“The NHAI has failed to repair the highway. They are not bothered about the inconvenience faced by us. As the winter season has already begun, rains and snow would compound the travel on the highway” said a passenger, Asif Hamid.
The road is full of pot holes and at some places the culverts have been washed away near Pampore bus stand. “We drive our vehicles at very slow speed on this stretch. Normally, it takes more than an hour to travel from Anantnag to Srinagar. But today it takes three to four hours to reach Srinagar,” said Irshad Ahmad, a passenger vehicle driver.
Virendra Singh, Project Director NHAI, Srinagar unit, told Excelsior that the construction work on the Highway stretch in Pampore got disrupted due to the floods, and its work got delayed. “We will review the working schedule on the stretch. I will order the officials to start repairing. I cannot exactly say when the work will start but we will repair it,” he said.
Singh said they have to work at other places too on the Highway that led to delay. “We can understand the problems being faced by the people. The staff is being reactivated after floods as they too got displaced,” he said. “People should bear with us at this time,” he said.

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