Construction works at many places in city have overburdened several roads resulting in traffic gridlocks during peak hours.
Among the burdened roads is MA Road. Due to construction of a bridge near Badyari Dalgate, MA Road is witnessing heavy rush of vehicles “more than its capacity.” “Dalgate bound vehicles coming from Downtown take the Sangarmall route instead of Badyari Crossing, overburdening the already overburdened MA road,” said Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Traffic (City) Muzaffar Ahmad Shah.
The SSP said there are 18,000 students studying in different schools in Lal Chowk. “They come and leave institutions in their designated transports. This only adds to the already overflowing traffic,” he said.
In addition to this, the SSP said the works under Srinagar Smart City near Ghanta Ghar and adjacent areas are also resulting in heavy traffic flow on MA Road. “This has made traffic officials to temporarily block several intersections along the Lal Chowk route,” he said. This causes immense problems to commuters.
About opening of intersections, the SSP said that he and his men “will only be able to regulate the traffic after we have operable roads, which means after the constructions are over.” “The distance which should be covered in five-minutes is taking more than 20-minutes. This results in more burning of fuel even as it is taking a heavy toll on my mental health,” said an office goer as he waited for gridlock to ease near Polo Ground.
While commending people for their cooperation during these huge-scale works, Divisional Commissioner Kashmir, Vijay Kumar Bidhuri said that the administration is aware of the issues and are trying to solve them as soon as possible. About works under ‘Smart City’ project missing deadlines, Bidhuri said they don’t “set these deadlines on a serious note and weather vagaries are contributing to the delay as well.”
He said the works are approaching the finish line but “the electric and civil component parts of the project are going on.” However, the Divisional Commissioner cited the inadequate public transport as the reason for huge traffic jams. “Once the administration fills this lacunae, traffic problems will be solved automatically.”
Bidhuri said that the administration’s top brass wants to see these works finished as soon as possible. This he said is “evident from the fact that the Chief Secretary Arun Kumar has taken various night time inspections related to these works.”
