Srinagar, April 9 – Vehicular traffic on the strategic Srinagar-Jammu National Highway was restored on Thursday after three days of blockage, officials said.
Traffic Department officials said that vehicular movement on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway was restored after the clearance of landslides that had blocked the highway in the Ramban district of Jammu and Kashmir for the past three days.
The nearly 300-km-long highway was blocked by multiple landslides early Monday. Although the highway was briefly reopened for a few hours on Tuesday morning, two major landslides forced a fresh closure.
Traffic police cleared over 900 vehicles after clearing landslides in the Shalgarhi, Banihal, Digdol, Khooni Nallah, Karol Bridge, and Chanderkote areas of Ramban.
Despite massive investment in bridges, flyovers, and tunnels, the highway remains a road that is only usable in good weather. Although the travel time between Srinagar and Jammu on this highway has been reduced from the previous 10 to 12 hours to 5 hours, the vulnerability of this highway to bad weather continues.
Heavy rainfall in the Ramsoo to Ramban town stretch of this highway triggers shooting stones/landslides, forcing the road to be closed.
All essential supplies, including petrol, diesel, cooking gas, mutton, poultry products, and vegetables, are brought into the landlocked Valley through this highway, despite the fact that a rail link is fully operational between the Jammu division and the Valley.
Train service from Katra town of the Jammu division and the Valley was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 26 last year.
Unless cargo trains carrying essentials of life into the Valley and fruits to national markets are operated regularly, the weather dependability of the Srinagar-Jammu highway will continue to adversely affect the economy of Kashmir.
