An unfinished highway, endless traffic jams and an administration seemingly comfortable with the suffering of ordinary commuters
There is perhaps no better illustration of administrative indifference and misplaced priorities than the daily traffic nightmare at Pattan on the Srinagar–Baramulla National Highway. A stretch of road that should ordinarily take barely five minutes to negotiate has become an endurance test for thousands of commuters, forcing people to remain stranded in traffic for hours. Office-goers, students, patients, employees, traders, transporters and people travelling for emergencies are all paying the price for a highway project that seems to have acquired an extraordinary ability to remain unfinished.
The irony is not merely that a crucial stretch of the Srinagar–Baramulla four-laning project remains incomplete. The bigger scandal is the apparent absence of any sustained institutional pressure from the Jammu and Kashmir administration, particularly the department responsible for public works and road infrastructure, to make the concerned central authorities and executing agencies answerable for the prolonged delay. If the administration cannot ensure timely completion of a critical highway corridor, it must at least demonstrate that it is demanding explanations, fixing deadlines and holding those responsible accountable. Unfortunately, commuters see the barricades, bottlenecks and queues every day, but rarely see the urgency that such a public inconvenience demands.
Pattan is not some insignificant village road carrying a handful of local vehicles. It lies on one of the most important transportation arteries of north Kashmir, connecting Srinagar with Baramulla, Sopore, Kupwara, Handwara, Uri and several other areas. The highway carries a continuous stream of passenger vehicles, public transport buses, commercial vehicles, goods carriers, fruit-laden trucks and vehicles travelling in both directions. It serves not merely the residents of Pattan but a substantial population of north Kashmir that depends on this road for access to Srinagar’s hospitals, educational institutions, business establishments, government offices and other essential services.
The absence of a verified, current official daily traffic count for the Pattan stretch is itself a reason why the authorities should publish proper traffic assessments. But nobody needs a traffic survey to understand the magnitude of the problem. Anyone travelling from Srinagar towards Baramulla or returning from north Kashmir knows what happens when the traffic converges at Pattan. Vehicles moving from opposite directions compete for painfully limited road space, queues build up, and what should be a routine passage becomes an exhausting exercise in patience. Reports from January 2026 documented commuters being held up for 30 to 45 minutes, with journeys that should take minutes stretching close to an hour. These are not isolated inconveniences; they represent a recurring failure of infrastructure and traffic management.
The Pattan bypass, conceived as an 11-kilometre, four-lane greenfield road to divert through-traffic away from the congested township, was expected to provide lasting relief. Its completion deadline had already slipped from 2025, with July 2026 indicated as a revised target in reports earlier this year. In April 2026, the project was reported to have achieved only around 48 per cent physical progress, with land acquisition disputes, compensation issues and additional land requirements affecting execution. More recently, on October 3, reports indicated that the proposed railway bridge associated with the bypass was still awaiting Railway clearance. In other words, even as construction activity has gained momentum, critical approvals remain outstanding.
And this is precisely where the accountability of the administration must be questioned. The Jammu and Kashmir Public Works (Roads and Buildings) Department may not be the principal executing agency for every component of this national highway project, with the Border Roads Organisation and central authorities having key implementation responsibilities. But that cannot become an excuse for administrative helplessness. The department, along with the divisional and district administration, has a responsibility to coordinate, monitor, pursue pending approvals, communicate public grievances and relentlessly take up delays with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and the executing agencies. Merely holding meetings, conducting inspections and issuing directions to expedite work is not the same as ensuring results.
The people of north Kashmir have heard enough assurances. They need a completed road, not another inspection photograph.
Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of this daily ordeal is the glaring contrast between the experience of ordinary commuters and the privileged class that governs them. For an ordinary citizen, Pattan is a test of patience, temper and physical endurance. For some members of the civil and police administration and political establishment travelling in VIP convoys, however, the same road appears to operate under an entirely different set of traffic rules.
With blue and red lights flashing atop their vehicles, these privileged travellers often move through the very congestion in which ordinary citizens remain trapped. While a patient being taken to a hospital, a student rushing for an examination, an employee trying to reach the workplace or a parent travelling with children must wait helplessly, those enjoying official privilege can expect traffic to make way for them.
What an extraordinary arrangement of public service! The taxpayer finances the road, the taxpayer finances the administration, and the taxpayer finances the vehicles that enjoy priority on that road. Yet the taxpayer is the one asked to wait.
One wonders whether the officials who routinely travel through this corridor have ever experienced the frustration of sitting in a vehicle for an hour to cross a stretch that should take five minutes. Do they ever have to explain to a hospital why a patient arrived late because an unfinished road swallowed up precious time? Do their children miss examinations because of traffic congestion? Do their appointments, official engagements and personal commitments collapse because a bypass remains incomplete?
Perhaps not. The privilege of a flashing beacon is that it makes the road appear shorter for those sitting inside the vehicle, even when it remains unbearably long for everyone else.
The purpose of raising this issue is not to deny emergency vehicles or authorised security movements their legitimate priority. It is to question a culture in which public inconvenience has become normalised while official convenience is treated as an entitlement.
The question that deserves to be asked is simple: how many representations has the Jammu and Kashmir administration made to the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways demanding a time-bound resolution of the Pattan bottleneck? How many formal communications have been sent seeking accountability from the executing agency? Has anyone demanded a publicly declared completion schedule, with responsibility fixed for every missed milestone? And if such representations have been made, what concrete results have they produced?
It is worth recalling that the issue had reached Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari in January 2026 following an intervention by Baramulla MP Engineer Abdul Rashid. The minister acknowledged the representation concerning the delayed Pattan bypass and the Delina–Kanispora flyover and assured that the matter was being examined for action.
This raises another uncomfortable question. Why should an elected Member of Parliament have to take the initiative to draw the attention of the Union Minister to a problem that the concerned administrative departments should themselves be pursuing with urgency? Is it not the responsibility of the local administration and the Public Works Department to ensure that the grievances of thousands of commuters are communicated forcefully to the central authorities?
The Divisional Commissioner, district administration and concerned engineering departments have periodically reviewed highway projects and directed executing agencies to accelerate work. The Chief Secretary also reviewed major highway projects in November 2025, seeking timelines and directing regular engagement with implementing agencies. But the real measure of administrative performance is not the number of review meetings conducted or the photographs released after inspections. It is whether people can travel without losing hours of their lives on a road that should have been completed long ago.
The authorities must also recognise that the problem cannot be addressed exclusively through the eventual completion of the bypass. Until that happens, there must be an effective interim traffic management mechanism. Adequate traffic personnel, clearly defined movement lanes, restrictions on unnecessary roadside parking, removal of obstructions, proper diversions, adequate lighting and round-the-clock monitoring during peak hours are essential. Construction activity must be planned in a manner that does not unnecessarily choke the remaining usable carriageway.
More importantly, the executing agency must be required to publish a transparent, component-wise progress report identifying pending land acquisition, compensation disputes, Railway permissions, construction milestones and the expected date of commissioning. If the railway bridge clearance is holding up a critical component, the concerned authorities must pursue it at the highest level rather than allowing another construction season to pass in bureaucratic correspondence.
The government must also examine the actual traffic volume on this corridor in both directions. A road carrying the transportation needs of several north Kashmir districts cannot be planned or monitored without reliable traffic data. The administration should make these figures public, assess peak-hour congestion and devise a traffic management plan based on the actual volume of passenger and commercial vehicles.
There is something deeply disturbing about a system in which the loss of an ordinary citizen’s time is treated as inconsequential. Time is not an insignificant commodity. It has economic value, professional value and, in many cases, medical value. A trader loses business, an employee loses working hours, a student loses preparation time and a patient may lose an opportunity to receive timely medical attention.
When thousands of people are subjected to such delays every day, the cumulative loss becomes enormous. The administration must understand that an unfinished road is not merely an engineering deficiency; it is a continuing public inconvenience with economic, social and human consequences.
North Kashmir has every right to demand infrastructure commensurate with its population, economic contribution and transportation requirements. The Srinagar–Baramulla highway is not a luxury project. It is an essential lifeline connecting communities, markets, institutions and healthcare facilities. Its timely completion should therefore be treated as an administrative priority rather than another item on a long list of infrastructure projects awaiting attention.
The Public Works Department and the district administration must stop behaving like passive observers of a project being executed by another agency. If the execution falls under the jurisdiction of the Border Roads Organisation and central authorities, that makes sustained coordination and pressure from the local administration even more necessary, not less. The department must make its institutional voice heard, seek accountability for every missed deadline and insist on a realistic, enforceable completion schedule.
And perhaps the most important question should be directed at those who enjoy the privilege of travelling with flashing beacons: if the common citizen has to spend an hour negotiating a five-minute stretch, why should those responsible for governance be exempt from experiencing the consequences of their administrative failures?
A government cannot claim to be responsive merely because its representatives can move swiftly through traffic. The real test of governance is whether the ordinary citizen can do the same without a VIP escort.
Pattan has waited long enough. Its commuters have waited long enough. The people of north Kashmir do not need another assurance, another inspection or another official photograph beside an unfinished road. They need accountability, a firm deadline and a completed highway.
A five-minute journey should not require an hour of patience, and certainly should not require a VIP beacon to make it possible.
