Water transport service in Jhelum fails to take off
Sumayyah Qureshi
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, December 4
The government’s plan to decongest traffic in the city and use the Jhelum for inland water transport has not met with any success. The river transport, which is now part of the Smart City project, has failed to take off as officials are struggling with technicalities. The project remains only on papers.
Under the much-hyped Smart City project, the government had to build ghats along the Jhelum and introduce water taxis to facilitate the mode of transport but nothing much in terms of infrastructure can be seen along the river.
“We have procured 10 boats for water transport which are lying with the Mechanical Engineering Department. The main hitch is the licence. We are not yet sure who will provide the licence to the boats as any vehicle or boat running on petrol or diesel requires a licence to run,” said a senior official.
The administrative official said they had also procured jetties. “We had got in touch with our Goa counterparts to ask them about the licensing process but we are still unsure how to go about it,” he said.
A trial run of the water transport service was launched jointly by the Jammu and Kashmir Tourism Development Corporation and the Tourism Department in 2012, but there has been no major headway into it.
“The government had kept Rs 50 for a ferry ride, which is too costly as compared to Rs 10 for a 10-km bus ride,” the official said, adding that these were some of the issues hurting the introduction of water transport and needed to be looked into to make it viable.
The plan to introduce water transport in Srinagar has been in the pipeline since 1998. Former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had also batted for the introduction of the water transport for two reasons: to provide an alternative mode of transportation to people and give a boost to tourism, especially bring on the tourism map various heritage structures along the banks of the river.
In earlier times, water transport was the only mode of transportation for people in Srinagar, which was home to various canals, most of which have long dried or been filled to make way for roads.
