Kashmir highway remains closed for 2nd day

Srinagar, Dec 22: About five thousand people are stranded on the 300-km-long Srinagar-Jammu national highway which remained closed for the second day today due to landslides, resulting in price rise of essential commodities in the Kashmir valley.

However, almost all the incoming and outgoing flights, including those carrying the haj pilgrims from Jammu and Kashmir to Jeddah, operated normally.

A traffic police official said one-way traffic was resumed on the highway last evening after the landslides were cleared by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) responsible for the maintainance of the highway, the only road linking the Kashmir valley with the rest of the country.

However, fresh landslides at Penthal forced the authorities to suspend traffic on the highway again in the night, he said adding that felling of stones from a hill top continued throughout the night.

He said the BRO has pressed into service about two hundred labourers with sophisticated machines to make the highway traffic worthy.

The official said no vehicle will be allowed from Jammu or Srinagar untill all the vehicle, stranded on the highway for the past two-days are cleared.

Official sources said about 5000 passengers and including truck drivers and conductors, who left Jammu yesterday morning in about 2000 vehicles, are stranded at different points on the highway.

The stranded vehicles included a good number of trucks carrying essential commodities, sources added. The closure of the highway has resulted in price rise of essential commodities in the Kashmir valley as almost everything is being imported from other states. The prices of vegetables has increased many fold while eggs are being sold at Rs 30 to Rs 36 a dozen, chicken Rs 65 to Rs 70 per kg and meat Rs 150 per kg.

Meanwhile, a high level meeting chaired by Kashmir's Divisional Commissioner Basharat Ahmad Dar reviewed the supply of essential commodities on the eve of Eid-Zuha, being celebrated on January Ist.

However, people alleged that the meeting was an eye wash to mislead the Chief Minister that administration was alive to the situation, while the situation on the ground was entirely different.

There was no check on price rise and the shopkeepers were charging the customers several times high against the government approved rates, they said adding that market checking squads were targetting few small traders when big fishes are being spared for unknown reasons.

People said no action was being taken against the companies selling packet milk openly on Rs two high as compared to rates before the shifting of Darbar move offices to Jammu.

They further said the condition of almost all roads in the city, particularly in the uptown, including Natipora, Badshah Nagar, Channapora, Methan, Lal Nagar and Nowgam, has worsened with just one light snowfall.

UNI

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