Streets in Bijbehara under snow even after a fortnight

Streets in Bijbehara under snow even after a fortnight

Anantnag: More than a fortnight after the season’s heaviest snowfall, the administration here in Bijbehara town of south Kashmir is yet to clear the roads and streets of snow, much to the inconvenience of the general public.
People in the town lament that the administration has only managed to make a few roads motorable. “Rest of the snow has been left as it is. The administration is doing nothing whatsoever to take care of the situation,” Rayees Ahmad, a shopkeeper in Goriwan area of Bijbehara, told Kashmir Reader.
Shopkeepers also lamented that the snow was pushed towards the edges of the road by bulldozers, blocking their shop fronts altogether.
“We have been buying salt everyday out of our own pockets to sprinkle it on the snow with the hope that it will melt. It does for a while but then evening comes and it again freezes into ice,” another shopkeeper, Javaid Ahmad, told Kashmir Reader.
The shopkeepers said that business has been badly hit due to the negligence on part of the administration as the customers have kept away from the market given its condition.
The situation in the interiors of the town is much worse, with many streets and roads still covered with snow. The worst affected is New Colony area in the interiors of the town, where almost no effort has been made to clear the snow.
“You can see the snow-covered streets as well as the roads. The municipal authorities have been telling us it is the Mechanical Engineering Department’s (MED) domain and that department is nowhere to be seen,” Zahid Hussain, a resident, told Kashmir Reader.
Another resident lamented how difficult it has been to even walk around in the area. “The other day, at the Fajr prayers, 11 elderly people slipped and fell while coming to the Masjid. No one is even listening to us anymore,” he said.
Others rued that their cars were still stuck and they fear about someone falling ill in such a situation. “The post-snowfall situation has never been so pathetic,” the residents said.
Kashmir Reader talked to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Bijbehara, Jahangir Khanday, who said that the problem was where to take so much of snow.
“We are deliberating upon it and in the coming day or two the issue will be sorted out,” Khanday said. He acknowledged that the MED people were nowhere to be seen for they have sub-let the snow clearance work to contractors with no proper equipment.

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