SRINAGAR

One of the major achievements, the ruling party would say, was that it opened Gupkar Road for traffic. The power street was accessible to exclusive vehicular movement. That was once upon a time.

Now, even the highway has no entry till 11 am. It costs.

Traffic cops stop the entire traffic in the city outskirts at Pantha Chowk and permitted entry into Srinagar only at 11 am. Nobody can enter the city from Batwara and Chanpora side. However, there is no bar on moving ahead on bye-pass till one reaches Sanat Nagar or Hyderpora.

On Thursday no entry at Chanapora by-pass made a pregnant woman suffer. The lady was travelling from Chadoora to Florence Hospital for her routine checkup. Moving in a Sumo, the carrier was stopped near Chanapora by the traffic police.

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The cops said they were helpless. But eventually they begged a lift from a private car and shifted her into that.

“Nothing is in our hands; we are following the orders and that our duty,” one cop said. “We are directed to allow only those light commercial vehicles which are in emergency and who can show the prescription. We are not allowing light commercial vehicles till no entry is not over.”

But how can a prescription help a patient who is parked at the tail of jammed road? And how about a person who feeling that nauseating feeling while on road and would like to see a doctor?

Locals living around Chanapora bye-pass complained that the ‘no entry’ has started hitting their scheduled, especially because children are unable to the get the cabs on time. Even government employees moving in commercial vehicles are stuck in the jam.

But it happens at Pantha Chowk as well. No light commercial vehicles are allowed to move towards Srinagar from Pantha Chowk directly through Batwara. Instead, they are directed to take the bye-pass and get into the city wherever ‘no entry’ is not enforced. While people spend a bit more and take the “longer learning curve”, parents carrying their kids to GB Pant hospital face a peculiarly different problem. Same is the case with those going to Chest Diseases hospital. They are barely a few kilometers away from their destination but have only option: either to wait or to take a longish route.

Light commercial vehicles had started triggering a change in the speed with which people were moving. Now the official obstruction is pushing Kashmir back to olden days.

Patha Chowk is witnessing interesting scene when the passengers moving from remote south started begging the cops for entry. “I have no issue waiting here for two hours but I have two problems: my appointing is fixed at 11:30 which will get cancelled and once I return, these two hours will prevent me from reaching Ahlan,” one middle aged man was heard telling a cop. “I am not sick but I am in a swoop.” The man eventually left the Sumo and started trekking the distance!

Unlike the Shalteng, the Pantha Chowk is more crowded because it connects south Kashmir to Srinagar and is the only road that connects with the rest of the world. Invariably it has many times more traffic which is expected to increase after the durbar comes with its exclusive cavalcade.

When this road stretch will be closed for two hours – from 9 AM to 11 AM, as is being practiced right now, movement will become horribly difficult at a time when Kashmir is desperate to see the take off of a tourist season, a year after the bleeding 2016 unrest.

Speaking on the issue SSP Traffic Srinagar, Sargun Shukla said, “We are trying to reduce traffic conjunction and shouldn’t rely on light commercial vehicles as are allowing mini commercial bus and SRTC busses during the time of no entry.”

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