Bemina- Jehangir Chowk travel a chaotic affair

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 24

The distance between Bemina to Jehangir Chowk is merely five kilometres. The travel time, however, depends on your luck.

Bemina is a residential locality on city’s western outskirts and is home to more than 8,000 families while Jehangir Chowk is the city’s centre.

During a shutdown, which frequently occurs in the region, the luck is on your side. The travel between the two points during a shutdown is smooth and takes a maximum of 10 minutes.

However, on a regular business day, the travel turns into a horrendous and chaotic affair, with few policemen of the Traffic Police Department manning the route, thus failing to streamline the rush of vehicles.

Bemina is one of the biggest residential neighbourhoods in the Srinagar district and several government offices, including that of Srinagar Development Authority and the district court, have been relocated to this locality or its vicinity in recent years, increasing the traffic rush on its route.

The district court complex, which was temporarily shifted after last year’s floods to the outskirts of Bemina - on Batamaloo-Qamarwari road - has limited parking space and a bulk of vehicles are officially allowed to be parked on the roadside, which also is a busy route for inter-district traffic to north Kashmir.

The time to travel the five kilometre distance stretches from 30 to 45 minutes during the morning and evening rush hours as traffic gets gridlocked at several bottlenecks near Bijli Ghar, Modern Bakery, Chatabal crossing and Batamaloo.

A state government official said the Traffic Department suffers due to lack of manpower with only a few hundred personnel at disposal to manage the increasing number of vehicles on the roads.

The efficient management of traffic has emerged as one of the most challenging tasks of the government with shrinking roads, ever-increasing number of vehicles and lack of civic sense making it difficult to address the challenge.