Srinagar-Jammu NH-44 opens for traffic after 20 days

SRINAGAR: After a 20-day closure, the Srinagar-Jammu national highway (NH-44) reopened for traffic Wednesday, enabling hundreds of trucks to move towards Jammu. The day saw only “down” traffic — movement from Kashmir towards Jammu — as vehicles are allowed to ply on each route every alternate day.

National Conference president Dr Farooq Abdullah, meanwhile, dismissed any sabotage or conspiracy behind the prolonged shutdown. “A lot of politics was played over the closure of the road,” Abdullah said, rejecting claims of an attempt to sabotage Kashmir’s fruit industry. “The highway was shut because of God’s wrath, not people’s doing. Do mountains come down due to people?” he asked while speaking to reporters in south Kashmir.

Earlier, political parties had accused J&K govt of failing to restore traffic on the key road, which is crucial during the apple harvest season. NC MP from Srinagar Aga Ruhullah said the highway “always gets closed for long periods during the harvest, badly hitting Kashmir’s horticulture economy”. PDP representative Iltija Mufti had accused the NC-led govt of being in touch with private companies seeking to take over Kashmir’s apple industry.

Farooq Abdullah dismissed these allegations, asserting that no such sinister plot was involved.

On Wednesday, traffic police allowed apple-laden trucks to move on the highway, a day after Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari chaired a review meeting on the status of NH-44 and assured CM Omar Abdullah of regular truck movement on the route. In the morning, police permitted light vehicles to pass from Qazigund toward Jammu. Later, around 11.30am, more than 6,000 heavy motor vehicles — most of them carrying apples — that had remained stranded on the Kashmir side for the past three weeks, were released toward Jammu.

CM Omar visited the affected stretch of NH-44 at Thard Udhampur to take stock of the ongoing restoration works and urged NHAI to expedite the restoration process to ease the movement of commuters and public. Traffic authorities were managing traffic under strict regulations on the affected stretch, where 250-300m of NH-44 remained muddy, uneven, and slushy.

Omar instructed the executing agencies to mobilise additional men and machinery to ensure timely completion, underlining that safe and smooth road connectivity was govt’s top priority.

(with inputs from Sanjay Khajuria in Jammu)