By Reyaz Ahmed, NAK
Baramulla: In the Jet Age people of remote Azad Gung area of Baramulla district in North Kashmir have to travel by boat to cross the mighty river, on which a bridge was dismantled by the authorities a year back.
Notwithstanding, the claims of government to complete the undertaken construction works in record time, work on Azad Gunj bridge – despite the intervention of Union Minter for Water Resources Professor Saif-ud-din Soz for its immediate accomplishment – gets no pace.
The construction of the prestigious bridge, after being demolished in 2005, was under taken by Jammu and Kashmir Project Construct Corporations (JKPCC) but it has been almost a year since the foundation stone was laid the construction of the bridge seems heading nowhere owing to which thousands of traders, students; commoners who used to commute across are facing hardships.
“We have been given repeated assurances by ministers and concern authorities, even Deputy Commissioner Barmaulla assured us that construction work will be taken on war footing but nobody seems moved with our plight,” said President of Noor-ul-Huda Ghulam Nabi Daga.
“We moved a letter to Union Minter for Water Resources Professor Saif-ud-din Soz for his personal intervention in the matter in mid November 2007; he had taken up the matter with concern minister Gulchain Singh Charak vide letter number MWR/3/1902/07. The concern Minster while admitting the fact that work on the bridge was slow assured the Union Minter that work on the bridge would be completed in a stipulated time but nothing has been done so far,” added Daga.
Though the concern authorities have promised mobile bridge (Pantoon Bridge) as alternative, ironically that too remains incomplete due to the shortage of Cylinders.
It is in place to mention here that the concern Minster assured in the same letter that foot bridge will be completed in month’s time.
The letter reads, “Regarding the foot bridge, the State PWD Minster assured Prof Soz that it would be completed within a period of one to one and a half months time. The work would be closely monitored.”
“This bridge was dismantled in 2005 with the assurance that it would be reconstructed within a short span of time and Foot Bridge will be place as an alternative but till date no steps have been taken to construct the bridge,” lamented an elderly commuter Abdul Karim Gojri of Baramulla.
The people and hundreds of students have to board boats to travel across as most of the big business establishments, educational and other government institutes including District hospital Barmaulla are across the river.
The shopkeepers of Noor-ul-Huda Market, while talking to NAK said, “Our business is mostly depend upon the customers of old town Baramulla and Rafiabad areas as they used to cross over this side by this bridge but due to demolition of bridge our business got badly impacted.”
Another shopkeeper Ghlum Rasool Sofi said, “Most of the shopkeepers of this market have taken loans from varied banks to earn livelihood but since the bridge become defunct.
He further said, “All filth and dead animals got heaped here which stinks and wreaked havoc, this may cause some dangerous diseases.”