SHOPIAN: Even after five years, about a hundred villages and five Tehsil headquarters have to wait another year or more for the completion of work on the Shopian-Bejbahara road, work which was started in the year 2017 under the Central Roads Fund (CRF).
Locals living alongside this 24-kilometer road stretch say that the road has been abandoned by the government.
“It was better if they had not started work on it. They bulldozed it, installed pipes, and left it like a rivulet,” said Ghulam Mohammed, a local.
According to officials, an amount of Rs 49 crore was sanctioned for only a 12-kilometer stretch under the CRF. However, the Roads and Buildings department started work on a 24-kilometer stretch with the same amount, which created an issue with the CRF and the funds were withheld.
“For 12 kilometers, it was directed under the CRF to develop the road as a bi-lane including a bisector. However, when all 24 kilometers were taken up, it created misunderstanding with CRF,” said a senior engineer.
The issue, though, has been settled now and the union road ministry has approved the same fund for 24 kilometers, the engineer said.
Locals from Zainpora said that there are deep potholes on the road and it takes them more than two hours to reach Shopian, which is an 18-kilometer distance. They said that if they take an alternate but distant road, then it takes them half the time.
The authorities in the district administration in the past few days have been issuing statements that the work on the road will he resumed very soon, but the contractors working on the road say that they will not start it till their pending payment is released.
“The department has around Rs 10 crore liability (of unpaid amount). How then would we be able to start work? They have not released a single penny post the abrogation of (Article) 370,” said one of the contractors.
He added that it will take at least one more year to complete the road as there are plenty of civil works pending on the road. Also, by the time these civil works are done, the weather would not be feasible to macadamise the road because of low temperatures.
Executive Engineer at the Roads and Buildings department in Shopian, Farooq Ahmad, told Kashmir Reader that it’s true that the central government has not released funds for the road.
“There was an issue with the CRF which is settled now. We have resumed work from Bejbahara to Zainpora, which we will complete by the end of this year,” he said.
He added that this project isn’t the only one where funds have not been released. “There are dozens of roads languishing because of funds under CRF not being released. I hope they will soon release funds and we will try to complete the work. Our chief engineer and secretary and deputy commissioner are all very much concerned about it,” he said.

Raashid Hassan