Srinagar, February 14
With improvement in the weather condition, traffic on the 294-km long Srinagar-Jammu national highway has been restored, while power supplies were also partially restored in the Kashmir valley after more than a week.
More than 20 houses, including the tehsil office building, have been damaged due to heavy snowfall at Gurez in the border area of Baramula district. The Gurez and Karnah area of Kupwara district remained cut off from the rest of the valley due to heavy snowfall. However, no loss of life has been reported. The frontier cold desert region of Ladakh, which remains cut off from the valley for winter months, is also experiencing heavy snowfall. The snowfall has disrupted road links between Kargil and Leh, while Leh remained cut off from Nobra due to fresh snowfall.
Around 900 vehicles had left Jammu for Srinagar last evening, while more than 1,200 more vehicles, both passenger and load-carriers with essential commodities, left early this morning. At present, only one-way traffic is plying on the highway. All types of vehicles, light and heavy passenger vehicles and load-carriers, will be plying from Srinagar to Jammu tomorrow.
The authorities here claim that the stock position of essential commodities in the valley was comfortable with more than 1,500 truckloads of essential commodities having entered the valley so far after the road was thrown open last evening.
The power position, according to the Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, Mr Khursheed Ahmad Ganai, had also improved today
with the restoration of supplies on the 132 KV Chennani-Srinagar transmission line that was damaged due to heavy snowfall on Saturday. However, the restoration work on four damaged towers on 220 KV Kishenpur-Pampore transmission line would take about 10 days more, according to the Divisional Commissioner. With this, the total power available was 380 MWs against a demand of 900 MWs, which would be supplied by rotation. The power available would be about two-thirds of what the valley received prior to the onset of bad weather, Mr Ganai said.
Referring to the clearing of the snow-covered stretch between Qazigund and Ramban on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway, Mr Ganai said the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) worked overtime with the assistance of the police, the Army and the ITBP. The first batch of stranded passengers and 57 vehicles crossed the Jawahar tunnel on the first day of clearing on Friday. On Saturday, another 360 vehicles reached the valley, while over 1,500 vehicles crossed over yesterday.
Giving details of the restoration work on the highway, the lifeline to the Kashmir valley, Brig S.S. Dasaka, Chief Engineer, Beacon project of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), said the delay in restoration of traffic was not because of the lack of resources, but due to bad weather conditions. There was a complete synergy between various agencies, the Beacon, the Army, the ITBP, the police and the civil administration, Brigadier Dasaka said. “The attempts were continuously hindered by heavy snowfall with heavy rains and blizzards”, he said, adding that there were high risk avalanche warnings between February 7 and 10. Within a day, the restoration work with deployment of 180 personnel of the BRO, 150 labourers and 20 machines was completed within the shortest possible time, he said.
