Just like the popular slogan of “Gareebi Hatao” worked for decades in the country until it attained the status of staleness , in the same way in Jammu and Kashmir, the three basic requirements of reasonably good roads, uninterrupted power supply and making available potable water to people has been playing hide and seek. Just upon seeing a patch of cloud in the Jammu skies, ordinary people start thinking the ”ramifications” in case the cloud resulted in a heavy downpour in which case potholes on fragilely constructed Jammu roads would create problems for the commuters as well as for their vehicles . Not only that, even water supply would be disrupted under various excuses as silt having accumulated in the water filtration plants or disruption in power supply which affected drawing of water from the plant or due to agitation of employees . Alibis are many , choice is on selecting the most appealing one. In respect of power supply, various ifs and buts and inarguable rhetoric would be put forward. Who is to be blamed for all such muddle and disarraying of things and who is to rue for the hardships of the people except, perhaps, the suffering people themselves . After all, it is not raining in Jammu and Kashmir only when it should rain as a natural phenomenon that it is claimed that roads got damaged due to rains. Should we restrict the ”right” of rain “gods” and appeal to them not to rain as that would expose Jammu roads to their reality. This rainy season presented to us absolute frailty and delicacy coupled with brittleness of Jammu roads and as it is said that proof of pudding is in its eating , using such roads has become nothing short of adventure where one has to be prepared for receiving bumps, jolts, jumps , knocks, thuds even crashes besides steady damage to vehicles. The question is as to why are roads built or constructed in such a way that just one rainfall of an hour or so is reducing the ”capabilities” of these roads to this extent which the people are currently undergoing and facing silently. Jammu roads are in a pitiable condition . Potholes, ditches , small trenches, dug saps like hindrances are what an ordinary commuter encounters and such a condition is in respect of main roads not to speak of connecting inner roads on the sides of which residential houses in hundreds are standing. Accumulated rain and drain water is flowing over such damaged roads causing mess and lot of difficulties to the people. Clouds of dust and heaps of mud are otherwise very often the identifying marks of the inner connected roads . The question people ask as to when shall the standard of roads construction be improved while tax payers’ hard earned money is lavishly spent on such roads on recurring basis . Is there is secret understanding to keep the standard of material and construction techniques of such a low quality that ”avenues” are deliberately kept open for the cycle of repairs, people want to know. People are least bothered about the problems of the administration , they are and must be bothered about resolution of their problems only. We have been receiving calls and discreet enquiries from the aggrieved people on daily basis by our news desks as to when water supply would be ”restored” in their colonies and areas in the heart of the Jammu city as for eight to ten days the concerned people have not been supplied any water. Should for the very basic need – one which has no substitute or alternative like water , ordinary people be made to extensively suffer , made to have arrangements at their own end including ”buying” water at exorbitant rates ? What about those areas/ lanes where even private water tanks cannot reach and the plight in the melee of the concerned residents can well be imagined.
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