Massive traffic jam on Mughal Road
Gopal Sharma
JAMMU, July 11: Worst ever traffic jam was witnessed on Mughal Road today and the passengers along with children remained stuck at different places for over 3-4 hours.
Reports said since the main Jammu-Srinagar National Highway was closed today for urgent repair work of damaged tunnel near Magarkote in Ramban sector, a large number of vehicles were diverted to Mughal Road which is narrow at many points and not properly maintained. Since the volume of empty tankers, trucks and passenger vehicles, mostly LMVs coming from Kashmir side and also vehicles moving from Jammu and Rajouri side, was higher today, it added to the traffic jam on the Mughal Road.
Several trapped passengers rang ‘Excelsior office’ and revealed their woes. They alleged that there was total traffic mismanagement today on this road and hardly any traffic police official was available to regulate the traffic. They said worst traffic jamming was witnessed near Chandimarh, Poshana, Bafliaz, Dera Gali and Thannamandi areas. The passengers/ tourists along with their children remained trapped for hours together on the road and there were hardly any way side facility available along the route.
SSP Traffic, Jammu (Rural), M L Kaith when contacted said that today main Jammu-Srinagar highway was closed for maintenance work. Therefore, over 300 empty oil tankers coming from Ladakh and Kashmir side were diverted to Mughal Road. Besides many LMVs and some empty trucks also used this road for movement on the either side. Moreover, road between Rajouri-Thannamandi-Dera Gali and Bafliaz is very narrow (single). This caused traffic jamming today, he added.
Kaith, however, claimed that DySP Traffic Rajouri- Poonch, Aftab and two other officers alongwith traffic cops were monitoring the regulation of traffic on the road and jamming was cleared by this afternoon. He said Thanna-Dera Gali- Bafliaz belt created much problem as this patch is very narrow and some widening wok is also going on there.
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