Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Apr 14: The Chief Engineer Project Beacon of Border Roads Organization, Brigadier R K Sharma today said that the freak weather posed a huge challenge for re-opening of Srinagar-Leh highway.
Sharma said that frequent snowfall at an altitude of 11000 feet at Zojila pass has always tested the strength of the jawans who are putting their lives at risk to ensure that the road opens ahead of the scheduled time. He said that at places snow accumulation has touched to almost 40 feet.
“A project beacon jawan had a narrow escape recently when the dozer he was working on came under an avalanche and got damaged. However, the jawan was saved with inspiring efforts of his co-workers,” he said.
“The avalanche sites had almost doubled on the Sonamarg-Zojila road due to the heavy snowfall this year. Even though we had plans to begin clearance operation ahead of time but the snowfall in mid of March brought our plans to a halt,” Brigadier Sharma said.
The Chief Engineer asserted that the project had to double its resources keeping in view the forthcoming Parliamentary elections. “We had already put plans into action so that various snow bound areas are cleared ahead of the Parliamentary elections. The jawans and officials started snow clearance from March 6 but the weather played spoil sport.
The snow clearance process was restarted number of times from Gagangir itself as the fresh snow fall hampered our work. The snow fall in the sector touched to almost 12 feet’s creating lot of hurdles in tracing of the road alignment,” he added.
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