Title - Road to rly station a nightmare for commuters

Anantnag: Travelling on the road connecting the Bijbehara railway station and the national highway continues to be a nightmare for the locals. With potholes that remain waterlogged most of the times, the road not only offers a bumpy ride, it is an eyesore for people living in the vicinity.“The carpeting on the road was stopped soon after it was started, nearly a year before the railways got functional in Kashmir,” said Parvez Ahmad, a local. The reason, he said, was that a couple of shopkeepers in the area had got a stay order on its construction. “Five years have passed and nothing has been done to make the condition of the road better,” he added.“The dilapidated condition of the road poses a great risk to pedestrians and commuters alike,” said another local.More than half of the 4-km-long stretch from the highway to the railway station has not been constructed till now. “We understand that a group of people overlooked the interests of the whole community by getting a stay order on the developmental work but have the authorities too shut their eyes towards the plight of the common man?” asked Rauf Ahmad, a local resident.People residing in Bijbehara town and its peripheral areas say despite the fact that trains are a more convenient mode of travel than buses, they prefer not to take the trains because of the bumpy stretch. Abdul Rashid, who travels to Srinagar on a daily basis, says, “I can save a lot of money if I travel by train but the mere thought of taking the road to the railway station makes me drop the idea.”

Even the transport service providers do not feel comfortable with the idea of extending their services on this road.