Road connectivity a distant dream for 3 Handwara villages

Kupwara, Jan 6: Even in this modern time, three villages in Handwara area of north Kashmir's Kupwara district are grappling with lack of road connectivity, thereby putting the inhabitants into a lot of hardships every day.

The residents of Monidora, Nagni and Salpara are angry with the authorities for failing to construct roads for these villages.

"Every day we are subjected to severe hardships as we are supposed to walk 3.5 kms on foot to reach our village. The students are the worst sufferers as every day they have to leave for coaching to Handwara. They walk all the way to Sarmarg from where they board public transport to reach Handwara," said Ghulam Qadir Mir, a local from Manidora.

"At the time of any medical emergency we are forced to carry patients on makeshift cot to reach the nearest medical facility," he added.

The residents said that they have been deprived of this basic facility by successive regimes in the last six decades. "We don’t have any facilities in the village, even though we are suffering due to lack of drinking water. We have now lost hope of seeing a macadamised road as the matter was taken up with the authorities numerous times," they added.

The tale of Nagni Wader Balla is not different. The people have been suffering in the absence of a road here. Similarly one hundred and thirty households of Salpara Rajwar are also facing numerous challenges due to the lack of a road.

"The DPR of our road has been framed several times but still no concrete steps with regard to construction of the road was taken thus leaving us disconsolate," said a local.

Meanwhile, District Development Council Member Rajwar Mir Sulaiman told Greater Kashmir that he has kept all three roads in NABARD project and hopefully these roads would be constructed. He questioned the PMGSY department of misleading LG administration by saying that not a single habitation in Kupwara district was inaccessible.

He acknowledged the hardships being faced by people in these villages without a proper road.