Mahmood Butt of Mecca Colony, Lahore, is one of several other tourists who vowed never to visit the Queen of Hills - Murree - again after he remained stuck in traffic along with his sick baby at the Jhika Gali intersection.

He was on a week-long trip to Murree - a hub of domestic tourism especially during the summer vacation.

Mr Butt reached there by a car along with his family, including two school-going children, on June 25 to enjoy the weather but shortened his stay and returned home a day after facing the traffic nightmare.

“You can cover the wooden bridge at Jhika Gali on foot in a few minutes. It took me two hours in my car,” Mr Butt told Dawn.

He was among the hundreds stuck on the bridge at that time.

“My five-year-old daughter had temperature but I had no option but to wait and wait,” he said.

The tourists who throng to Murree to beat the oppressive heat of the plains have to deal with a number of problems. But the traffic mess at the Jhika Gali and GPO intersections has to be the worst of them all.

Their long containment at Jhika Gali has its roots in the Punjab government’s scheme, the ‘Restoration of Landslide at Jhika Gali Murree (Slope Stabilisation/Road Improvement Measures)’.

The Jhika Gali’s intersection connects the roads leading to most visited and beautiful places located on either side of the temporary bridge like Nathia Gali, Ayubia, Patriata, Bhurban, Expressway, New Murree, Lawrence College Bypass and Upper Jhika Gali.

The Tourism Development Corporation Punjab general manager Tanveer Sheiskh said an estimated 10,000 vehicles reached Murree daily in the peak season. Of them, he said, around 4,000 vehicles went towards Khyber Pakhtunhwa after a short stay.

The influx of such a large number of vehicles inflicts impairments on the smooth flow of traffic particularly at Jhika Gali.

Two to three-kilometre long queues at the intersection have become a routine matter. Only one lane is allowed to cross the wooden bridge.

The gravity of the inconvenience to tourists can be gauged from the fact that vehicles cannot move through each other and even cannot take a U-turn due to small width of the road.

It takes usually three to four hours for a motorist at the end of the queue to cross the bridge.

The wooden bridge was constructed temporarily some three years back to facilitate both sides of traffic shortly after a landslide at Jhika Gali.

A senior official of the Punjab Highway Department told Dawn that the major factor behind the traffic mess at Jhika Gali was procedural delays in initiating the scheme of the restoration of the landslide and construction work.

Designed by Nespak, he said, the scheme for slope stabilisation/road improvement measures at Jhika Gali was approved by the secretary communication and works department on Sept 5, 2011, at a cost of Rs409.098 million.

The major components of the scheme included Geotechnical Investigation and Instrumentation, slope stabilisation measures and landscaping, road work, road furniture and environmental monitoring and mitigation.

He said the scheme was later revised on the recommendations of Nespak (consultant) on April 10, 2012, amounting to Rs471.389 million.

Later, some of the provisions were revised and some new were added to the scheme which caused further delay in launching the scheme.

Finally, the PDWP approved some more provisions which included formation of an embankment with specified material Pitrun/Bedrun material, drainage of mattress, toe drain, sweet soil including hydro seeding, territorial facing as soil enforcement strip, construction of 12.19 metre wide, 244 metre long Kuldana Jhika Gali side road with provision of 3’.5” asphalt over 200mm base and 200mm sub-base course, construction of 274 metre long, 2.5 metre wide road on Hill Dholo side, provision for informatory, regulatory and warning signboard of international standard and provision for iron guard railing for safety of traffic.

“The work was awarded to NLC on single source basis on April 27, 2012, with the time limit of five months. The extension in the deadline was accorded by the competent authority up to December 5, 2012,” the official said.

It was really a huge task especially in the context of frequent incidents of landslides, he said, adding the work was at different stages when some cracks were observed on the first platform/bench of gravel material constructed by NLC which further delayed the scheme.

Later, another estimate, amounting to Rs998.294 million, was framed on the basis of overall scope of work which was required to be done at the site.

It included the variation of existing scope (as recommended by Nespak) as well as new scope finalised by a technical design committee.

He said Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif visited the site on Dec 8, 2012.

The officials on the occasion apprised the CM that the work on the one component of the scheme - road up to Jhika Gali - would be completed by Dec 31.

They added that the road would be widened by 60 feet by removing the temporary bridge constructed due to landslide. Earlier, this road was only 20 feet wide and its design had been prepared by Nespak.

However, the company failed to do the job even six months after the deadline.