Leh highway to reopen next week after 6 months

Kargil, Apr 16: Undeterred by unprecedented snowfall followed by avalanches late last month damaging snow cutters, the Border Roads Organisation(BRO) personnel were busy working round-the-clock to put through the 434-km-long Srinagar-Leh national highway, closed since November 15 last year.

We expect the snow clearance operation will be completed on the highway by April 20, about a fortnight before the schedule. However, it may take another five days to make the road motorable, a senior BRO official told sources at Zojila pass, the highest point on the highway.

Snow cutters were in operation, making way through a 10 to 15 feet snow wall at Gumri, when Chief Executive Councilor of Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council(LAHDC), Kargil Asgar Kabralayee alongwith other senior officers and senior functionaries, including Deputy Commissioner Ghulam Nabi Bodah from newly created Ganderbal district from the Kashmir valley visited there.

A senior GREF officer S K Singh told a sources correspondent who also visited Zojila that the frozen snow and avalanches from Drass to Gumri had been cleared by the HIMANK of BRO.

The BEACON, responsible for the maintenance of the highway from Srinagar to Zero point too have been cleared from the highway.

Work from both sides, Gumri and Zero point was still in progress and snow on the two km stretch will be removed within next four days, he said adding later that it will take another five days to make the highway motorable.

The highway was closed on November 15 following heavy snowfall in the entire region.

Two Kashmiri teachers and about a dozen vehicles came under snow avalanches at Zero point. However, the body of a teacher was later recovered after a week while the body of another teacher remained buried under snow after army, police and villagers failed to recover it.

Mr Singh said that there was heavy snowfall last month which delayed the road clearance operation. One of the snow cutters was damaged on March 30 after a snow avalanche.

However, therewas no human casualty, he further added.

UNI