Amir Tantray, JK News Today
Doda, March 19: Accidents on 110-km-long Batote-Kishtwar national highway are the major cause of deaths in Chenab valley but the government has done nothing to put an end to these accidents.
Successive governments have ignored this major cause of death in Chenab valley and till day no major change has occurred on the ground.
There are several causes of accidents which many experts have pointed out including rash driving, use of mobile phones and untrained drivers. But the most common cause of the accidents is still poor maintenance of roads and absence of crash barriers.
It is an open secret that Chenab valley is 100 percent hilly and roads are constructed after cutting stones, hills and mountains. Everywhere roads are constructed either over river or streams and chances of vehicles rolling down remain high. It is crash barriers which can stop a vehicle rolling down but things haven’t improved yet.
An expert told JK News Today that many at times administration was informed to keep installation of crash barriers in a detailed project report before construction but no one has listened to this suggestion.
Moving on hilly roads is always difficult as there are curves which causes motion sickness to many. Untrained and under trained drivers get exhausted which also becomes a cause of accident.
Moreover, geological experts believe that whenever construction is done by cutting the hilly it causes landslides during the rainy season and roads get damaged also. “It takes almost 20 years for an area to stabilize but if work is not stopped things will continue to get poor. Before constriction the opinion of geological experts should be taken into consideration,” said a geological expert of Jammu university.
