Twin capital cities of the State have expanded considerably during past two or three decades. Firstly, there has been large scale migration of rural population to the urban areas, especially the cities of Jammu and Srinagar, and secondly, people are gradually shifting to single family unit system which means breaking up of joint families. This has brought pressure on the availability of land and other civic amenities that come with modern living. Population pressure on the two cities has further increased owing to the fact that the Government has not focused attention on developing new residential colonies which would have been a dependable solution for decongestion of cities. The reasons could be either the State has no funding sources to develop new residential colonies or it has no planning for urban development. Whatever the case, the situation is not satisfactory.
More than two years ago, a plan for decongesting the two capital cities was floated. National Highway Authority of India gave a plan of building a four-lane Ring Road in both the cities. Once the project received a nod from the State Chief Minister in September 2012, preliminary survey work was started. According to Feasibility cum Preliminary Design Report, prepared by Louis Berger Consultancy Pvt. Ltd, the proposed 57.80 km long Jammu Ring Road was to start at Raya Morh near Vijaypur and pass through Bishnah and R.S. Pura and end up at Nagrota Bypass. In Srinagar, Phase I of the proposed Ring Road envisaged connecting Galandar near Pampor with Srinagar-Uri Highway at Narbal junction and Phase II would see connecting Narbal with Ganderbal by a 4-lane road. In all it would be 34.72 and 27.2 kilometres of Ring Road for Srinagar.
This much needed project is likely to fall through despite good deal of preliminary work having been done so far. The State government has refused to be able to meet the cost of acquisition of land for the purpose which comes to just 40 per cent of the total cost of land acquisition. Jammu Ring Road would have the estimated expenditure of 1315 crore rupees while for Srinagar projects estimate is Rs 1195 crore in Phase-I and Rs 448 crore in the Phase-II. The State Government has to share only forty percent of Land Acquisition and utility shifting cost. In a communiqué by the State Planning and Development Department to the NHAI, the State Government has said that it is unable to provide its share of cost of land acquisition and has desired that the Government of India bear all cost on acquisition of land and allied matters.
The question is that the project has been under discussion for last two years and the CM has also committed the State Government to share land acquisition costs. Why has the Government dragged its feet and reversed the entire project? Ring Roads for the two cities are a much desired project.
The two capital cities are getting over-congested. City roads are narrow and choking. Traffic hazards make movement of human beings very cumbersome. Encroachment of the inner roads goes on unabated and the Municipal authorities are unable to get these vacated. The net result is that congestion in two capital cities has increased manifold. In Jammu, in particular, the ring road has strategic importance as well because it will be touching some important border posts. The same holds good for Srinagar also where decongestion has to be brought about on larger scale involving connectivity between Narbal junction and Ganderbal apart from Phase I link.
Keeping these facts in mind, we would like to impress upon the State Government that it needs doing some rethinking on its decision of refusing to meet its share of cost on acquisition of land and related things. It is not in good taste to begin projects half-heartedly and then abandon these suddenly on the pretext that funds are not available. It is bad planning and needs to be avoided. It is all right to approach the Central Government for assistance but to abandon the project more than two years after it was announced seems a decision taken in haste.
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