Chadoora: Residents of Takiya village in Nagam area of Budgam district have been suffering the administration’s apathy for more than a decade now with a shabby, unpaved road going uphill to their houses.
The authorities have failed to lay even the basic crushed stone metal on the about 500-feet link road from Lolipora to Takiya, a few metres from the main Chadoora-Chrar-i-Sharif road.
The literally bare road is a nuisance to the residents throughout the year. In summers, the plumes of dust emanating from the road blind them whenever a vehicle passes by. During rains and winter, the muddy and slippery road becomes dangerous to even walk on, especially for children and elders who are likely to suffer a fall and injure themselves every time they venture out.
The hilly location of the locality makes the road all the more risky for walking during rainy season and winter snow.
A youth from Takiya village told Kashmir Reader that the residents, especially children, have to literally hold each others’ hands for walking on the tricky road during wet weather.
Villagers said that repeated requests to authorities to fix the road had failed to move them to action.
They said the road has been awaiting repair despite the office of the Block Development Officer (BDO) situated in the same village.
BDO Nagam Aabida Nabi Khan told Kashmir Reader that it was not practically possible to macadamise the road with the limited funding available in the MGNREGA scheme, under which the road was built by the Rural Development Department.
As the scheme objective was to provide livelihood to the rural poor, sixty percent of the scheme component has to be used to pay the labour wages, thus limiting the expenditure on the material component, Khan explained.
However, he said, his office is in communication with the local R&B Department to macadamise the road in the next financial year.
Executive Engineer R&B Division Chadoora, Sheikh Hilal, said he hoped that they will take up the project in the financial year 2021-22.

Irshad Khan