Charpoy and excavator become a mode of transport for Bandipora woman due to tardy snow clearance

Bandipora, Jan 2: Delayed snow clearance operations on Thursday forced locals of a remote village to shift a woman patient on a charpoy for treatment at a hospital.

Locals said Azi Begum, a resident of Herpora in Athwatoo village, had fallen unconscious. The family then sought to treat her at a nearby hospital in Bankoot.

However, when the villagers somehow managed to reach Athwatoo at 3:00 PM with the patient on the charpoy, they found the snow on the road in Athwatoo had not been cleared, forcing them to continue the treacherous journey on foot.

Notably, Herpora is a remote habitation of around thirty families, located about four kilometers from Athwatoo, a hill station, 14 kilometers away from the district headquarters.

The hill station has two access roads: via Ahamshereef and Bankoot.

"The villagers, upon reaching Athwatoo with the patient, found the road had not been cleared as no machinery had reached here," Ishfaq Ahmad, a villager said.

The distressed family, which included the woman patient's husband, Ghulam Mohammad Lone, with the help of villagers, then continued their journey towards Bankoot village.

The locals said the woman reached near Bankoot village around 5:00 PM when an excavator pressed into service for snow clearance was moving towards the village and lifted her for the rest of the journey.

The villagers said the concerned department showed a "laid-back approach" in clearing the road to the village on Thursday. However, the scenes were completely different last Friday when snow cutters had moved in early.

Officials at the Mechanical and Engineering department told Greater Kashmir that they had achieved "99 percent of the snow clearance operation" by Thursday evening, with some link roads under PMGSY pending.

They said the snow cutter machine to Athwatoo first clears the Ahamshreef road and moves towards mountainous Buthoo. Later, it clears the Athwatoo-Panar road and finally reaches the Bankoot road from Athwatoo.

"There was heavy snow on the Buthoo road, and the machine had to move carefully. It took us some extra time to reach Athwatoo," officials of the department told Greater Kashmir.