Walking on the main city roads after a little pour-down from the heavens makes people recall the flood like conditions of 2014. Astonishingly, within a jiffy all the sewers and drainage manholes begin to overflow, leaving no space for pedestrians to walk a step further.
Thereafter, many of such walkers take shelter under the protrusive porches of the shops that are covered under its extended rooftops, waiting for gushing water on the roads to calm down. This is the flourishing view of the proposed Srinagar SMART City.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs defines ‘the purpose of the Smart Cities Mission is to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local area development.’ Regrettably, no such transformational change is noticeable in Srinagar.
In contrast, the condition of roads has become more deplorable with every passing day wherein people continue to complain but the administration is given a deaf ear to their pressing pleas.
The pride of a City remains its Municipal Cooperation but in Srinagar the SMC appears to be least concerned about the drainage failures, water lodging problem and awful road conditions.
Just a few months back under the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act the City Roads of R&B were transferred to the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) widening its area of responsibility.
However, the repair work of numerous roads that require immediate macadamization and filling of potholes are kept in limbo causing immense inconvenience to the people across the city.
The SMART City project is a very comprehensive plan that intends to change the outlook of our existing city holistically. But apart from reading how perfect and sophisticated it’s going to turn out to be, we need to focus more on the current stark realities wherein the condition of roads has become such that even arks and boats can easily float over it. Even the pools of water can be found on city fly-overs which is definitely a rare marvel of engineering not to be seen anywhere else. The myriad number of potholes and eroded road surfaces in Srinagar City may win us its exclusive patent rights, at least that can be counted as an achievement.
People are not happy with the apathetic response of the concerned departments especially in regards to the dilapidated conditions of roads and drainage systems. The administration needs to wake up and take up concrete steps to alleviate sufferings of the people.
