Chief Secretary asks for smooth movement of fruit laden trucks on NH-44

Srinagar, Jul 15: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, Monday chaired a meeting at Civil Secretariat here with the stakeholders for working out strategy to further reduce the travel time on Srinagar Jammu National Highway for the fruit laden trucks.
Among others the meeting was attended by Additional Chief Secretary, Home; Principal Secretary, APD; Divisional Commissioner Kashmir; IG Traffic and other senior officers while Jammu based officers participated virtually.
Regarding movement of fruit laden trucks from the valley, the Chief Secretary stressed on making a comprehensive plan for smooth movement of these vehicles to further reduce the travel time for perishable items. He asked for marking the fruit-laden trucks with specially designed stickers for identification and giving unhindered access to reach the Mandis outside so that the growers don’t suffer any losses.
While calling for enhancing level of enforcement especially on the critical stretches of the road, the Chief Secretary told the officers to utilize alternate assets like Mughal Road and Jawahar Tunnel optimally to reduce the traffic congestion on NH-44. He asked them to ensure that oil tankers and other empty trucks moving towards Jammu should be directed to take towards Mughal road. He said that the fruit trucks should have an option to make use of Jawahar tunnel in case there is an apprehension of delay via Quazigund tunnel.
He asked the concerned officers to make use of lean windows optimally by diverting most of the heavy vehicles during the underutilized period. He also asked the NHAI to further improve the overall road surface besides blacktopping of potholed portion near Magarkote and sort out all other minor issues without any undue delay.
In his presentation, the IG Traffic, Bhim Sen Tuti, highlighted the pattern of traffic on the highway through various studies and algorithms. He presented the day-wise and seasonal behavior of traffic along with analysis of time taken by each class and size of the vehicle. He also dwelt upon causal analysis of each aspect of this traffic behavior besides highlighting certain remedial measures.
He said that travel time has reduced considerably between Navyug and Chenani-Nashri tunnels over the corresponding years due to efficient traffic management and better road surface.