Madar residents irked over bad roads, demand macadamization  

Suhail Rather

Bandipora, 13 Sep: The residents in Madar area of North Kashmir’s Bandipora district have accused the Roads and Buildings department for failing to resurface various roads and link roads in the madar town.

A number of residents and delegations told the Kashmir Convener that the R&B department ignored the madar area in the ongoing macadamization process this year also. “All other areas in the district saw macadamisation of roads, link roads and lanes but the Madar area was taken for granted,” they said. They said that they have been pleading before authorities for macadamisation of these link roads.
“We were ignored by previous governments also and we continue to face this discrimination even up to this day," Mohammad Arif, a local resident of Madar said. He said that they have been pleading before authorities of Roads & Buildings Department (R&B), successive deputy commissioners and other higher authorities for the last five years for macdemisation of a link road.

The locals said that a half kilometer road stretch has been ignored by officials of R&B department in the past when around 1200 meters of road stretch was macadamized. They said that when R & B authorities were asked as to why they left this half kilometer without macadamisation they were told that it will be taken up next year. “Four years have passed since then but the road remains unattended,” they alleged “We demand LG administration to look into the matter as deteriorated roads trigger health issues due to mounting dust apart from causing inconvenience to commuters,” they residents said.
The people Threatened to hit the streets if the road is not taken up this year.

Roads in far flung areas have been macadamized but this area which is the face of Bandipora and is a few meters from mini secretariat remains underdeveloped and roads depict sorry state of affairs,” he said.

The local residents from Ahamshareef, Gunddachina and Malangam also alleged that the R&B department turned a blind eye to dilapidated roads in their area.