Several Local Village Residents Decry Dilapidated Road Conditions
Zaffer Iqbal
Uri, Sep 06 (GNS): Around a dozen agitated landowners in Silipather area in Nambla village of this border town on Sunday blocked village road even as stopped the ongoing road construction work in the area over the alleged non-payment of sanctioned compensation in lieu of land taken from them by the authorities.
A group of landowners told GNS that in 2016 the PMGSY department took the construction work of 3 km Silpather road in Nambla.
“I was asked by the department to give five and a half kanals of land in addition to 35 walnuts trees for the project in lieu of compensation, however, even after passing of four years I haven’t received any compensation,” said Irfan Ahmad Qureshi, part of the group.
He said that though they met the DC Baramulla in this regard but nothing has been done to date. “We are poor people as our livelihood is totally dependent on our lands,” he said adding “Though officials of the Revenue department visited the village a few years back for an assessment, however we are yet to see any help from any of the quarter.”
A local from the area Tabasum said that the road stretch has been under construction for the last many years and is yet to be completed and now it has been closed for vehicular traffic after unpaid landowners have put stones on the road. “We are caught between the authorities and landowners and are now completely cut-off from the tehsil headquarters”, she lamented.
Meanwhile, locals from Jabla village have also rued the dilapidated condition of the road.
“Despite the road constructed some 40 years before, R&B department has not done any black-topping of the stretch even as no proper drainage has been put into place for all these years”, they said.
Sukhdar village residents in the frontier town residents have also decried bad condition in the area.
When contacted Peer Shahjahan Muhammad, Executive Engineer, PMGSY Baramulla said that he was aware of the matter.
“We are on to it and the issues will be resolved by November ending,” the official said. (GNS)
