Shopian: The snow clearance on Mughal Road, which connects Kashmir via Shopian with Poonch and Rajori districts in Jammu region, is likely to be started by the 25th of this month.
Officials told Kashmir Reader that several feet of snow had accumulated on this road as the region last year received the heaviest snowfall in decades.
An official said that it many take more time for the snow clearance this year. “It would be a bit difficult than previous years, there would be heavy avalanches as well which take more time to clear,” an engineer from the mechanical engineering department said.
The road was closed last year after the region received untimely heavy snowfall in the month of November. Many attempts were later made to restore this alternate link road of Kashmir to rest of the country but repeated snowfall on the road put paid to these efforts.
This historical road every year remains closed for more than five months because of heavy snowfall and apprehension of snow avalanches and shooting stones on the 20 kilometre road stretch from Zaznad to Pir ki Gali.
According to official data, this 78 kilometer Mughal Road was inaugurated for light vehicular movement in year 2009. Around Rs 650 crore were spent on its construction.
“I had bought hundreds of apple boxes to supply them to Poonch and Rajori on demand from the traders there, but the early snowfall washed away my hope to earn. Later, after the untimely closure of Mughal Road, I supplied the same Grade B apple to Punjab which brought heavy losses to me,” Javid Ahmad, a trader, said.
Ansar Hameed, assistant executive engineer, Mechanical engineering department, told Kashmir Reader that they are ready to launch snow clearance operations on the road from 15th of this month. However, he said, for that purpose they need orders from higher ups.
“We have to get orders from divisional commissioner Kashmir and inspector general of police traffic to start the clearance work,” he said.
Hameed added that for snow clearance process they use machines of Mughal Road division Shopian and their number is sufficient.” It includes three snow cutters, three bulldozers,” he said.
Routinely it takes the department more than a month to accomplish the snow clearance of the road. The other half of the road is being cleared by Poonch division of Jammu.

Raashid Hassan