By Dr. Ashraf Zainabi

Countries, cities, towns, and villages prosper when connectivity is improved. Roads play an important part in prosperity, besides railways and airways. One of the most overlooked consequences of Kashmir’s outdated road maintenance strategy is the gradual elevation of road surfaces due to repeated blacktopping. Instead of properly reconstructing roads with drainage and expansion plans, authorities simply add new layers of asphalt year after year. Over the past four to five decades, this has led to an alarming rise in road levels by nearly 2 to 3 feet in many places.

The impact on adjacent buildings—both residential and commercial—has been devastating. Homes and shops that were once at street level have now sunk below the roads, leaving them vulnerable to flooding, dampness, and structural damage. In many cases, the ground floors of buildings have become unlivable or unusable. This has led to huge economic losses for property owners, forcing many to either abandon or completely rebuild their structures. Who is responsible? Government? Engineers? Thekedar? or All Someone, someday has to take it’s responsibility.

This kind of road maintenance is not just inefficient—it is destructive. The government’s reluctance to properly widen, reconstruct, or redesign roads has effectively turned infrastructure development into an endless cycle of patchwork fixes that cause more harm than good.

When Roads Become Multi-purposeful

A road’s primary purpose is transportation—both for vehicles and pedestrians. But in Kashmir, roads have been turned into multi-purpose spaces for every function except transportation.

Many roadsides, especially in urban centers, have become unofficial dumping sites for household and commercial waste. Sand, gravel, bricks, and cement bags are routinely dumped on roads, blocking lanes and worsening........

© Kashmir Observer