Two flyovers, one each for Srinagar and Jammu, were approved way back in 2007-08 after careful study of traffic congestion in two capital cities. Work on the flyover in Srinagar connecting Jahangir Chowk with Rambagh has been started and pre-requisites of the same have been completed. About 285 shopkeepers and business men who are affected by the construction of the flyover have been paid about Rupees 97 crore by way of compensation and re-starting their business. Acquisition of land for the purpose has also been almost completed. As against this, the flyover in Jammu city proposed from Shakuntala Cinema to Rehari Chungi (Balwinder Chowk) has been relegated to negligence. Not an iota of work has been done. The entire project has got mired in controversies and divisive opinions. People with selfish aggrandizement have been influencing the Government agencies to abandon the project because their business interests are threatened by the construction of the flyover. The worst is that even sections of political leadership and the ministers want to see that the project is stalled to serve their selfish interests…
It is an irony that during the British and the Maharaja rule in J&K, it was not possible to create obstructions in the execution of developmental work once it was approved. But in popular rule, the wishes of an influential few carry the weight and the interests of general public are of no importance. Jammu city is tearing at seams owing to horrible traffic congestion. There is no road and no by-pass that is not jammed during peak hours. People going to their work places have to leave two hours before their work place open. This is just to give margin to traffic jams which are a recurring feature of Jammu city transport. Because of narrow and crowded streets, the Transport Department is obliged to order small, match box like non-sense of mini buses to ply on these lanes. They create more confusion than confounded. There seems no hope of Jammu city changing the obsolete and redundant traffic system and replacing it with modern, more comfortable and more punctual transport system. It needs vision, initiative and drive. These qualities are abysmally lacking in our policy planners and traffic controllers. The traffic police think that catching a scooterist without a helmet or a motor driver without the belt tied around his waist is all that he is expected to do when on duty. The higher authorities need to educate traffic police that they have to be friendly towards the commuters whether riding a private vehicle ore a mini bus. If the roads are wide enough and if there are flyovers sufficient enough crowding and traffic jams will come to an end. In Srinagar they have succeeded doing so but in the case of Jammu, less said the better. Strangely, the Jammu political leadership has not raised is voice against inordinate delay in developmental projects in the region and he city. Whatever be their political affiliation and whatever wrong they feel has been done to them, we hope they will sink their difference as far as development of basic infrastructure in Jammu region is concerned.
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