Even though many villages lying in the proximity of the river are prone to floods, not many of them have proper bridges to connect the people to the main roads.
Many villages, tribals and hamlets located in the interior places are deprived of footbridges. Lack of proper bridges makes their lives miserable during the rainy season. Peoples of Doda and Kishtwar districts ignored by the leaders and Districts Administration. It is very unfortunate after having so many MLAs and well known leaders like Ghulam Mohd Saroori, Sunil Kumar Sharma, Jalal UD Din Qazi, Sajad Ahmed Kichloo, Abdul Majeed Butt, Shakti Raj Parihar, Mohd Sharief Naz, Abdul Majeed Wani, Tariq Hussain Keen belongs to this land of Doda-Kishtwar districts but we still have these wooden logs-temporary bridge and timber bridges.
This bridge is located in Kahalan (near Chamoti) in district Kishtwar and connects a large number of villages and hamlets like Lopa, Saloga, Gilni, Khatasoo, Honda, Badanoo, Drobri etc. The total population of these villages and hamlets is 10,000 approximately.
While speaking to The Chenab Times correspondent a local resident Mohd Sharief said, “We already lost many lives and some are rescued by the locals.”
“We build this bridge every year and every year this bridge drown by this river,” he added.
Former Cheif Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad, also belongs to Bhalessa (Gandoh) area of Doda district. At his time, he allotted various roads, Hospitals, Schools, Colleges and he is also known for boosting tourism of this area especially Bhaderwah. But these things are useless according to followings points;
1. Hospitals are useless without Surgeon, Physicians and other staff and most importantly the machineries like digital X-Ray etc. As a true example we can take from a Hospital in Thathri town, this hospital have X-ray machine of 2000 model while India had stepping up to Digital world in 2020.
2. The Schools are useless untill our Education System’s corruption ends.
3. The roads of Chenab Valley are considered as dangerous road in whole Jammu and Kashmir, while some are categorised as world’s dangerous road like Kishtwar-Killer road.
Managing Editor and Senior Photojournalist at The Chenab Times