Qazigund, Mar 14: The traffic jam along the link roads on the highway in the Qazigund area of south Kashmir’s Anantnag district is hindering the smooth movement of commuters and causing inconvenience to the general public.
According to locals, the traffic jam on the national highway from Bonigam to Qazigund has become routine for a couple of weeks now.
Mir Zahoor, a resident of Dalwach, said the traffic jam along the highway and the link roads leading to several villages comes to a halt every other day.
“The Dalwatch-Railway road remains busy with these Heavy Motor Vehicles, which isn’t their normal route. The area around this link road faces a lot of problems whenever the traffic is opened for them,” he said.
Another local said the traffic is one-sided on the Jammu-Srinagar Highway. “The Jammu-bound HMVs remain lined up from Levdoura Naka (checkpoint) along the highway, and they are using link roads to bypass the Naka, causing trouble for commuters on these narrow link roads which leads to traffic jams later, he said.
Last month, Panzath residents protested against the authorities for failing to stop the HMVs from plying through link roads in Qazigund.
A traffic official told Rising Kashmir that they don’t have enough manpower to stop HMVs from plying on these routes. “Earlier, when there was traffic plying on the national highway on alternative days and trucks would line up for a few days, we had deployed personnel for such situations,” he said.
The official said once the traffic flows smoothly again, there will be no such grievance. The road at Dalwas is still single-way, which poses some challenges, he said.
