HARIPUR: Absence of a bridge or a causeway on a watercourse, locally known as soka, causes suspension of vehicular traffic on the busy Railway Road whenever there is a heavy shower to the misery of commuters.

Railway Road leads to Khanpur and Taxila and has over 100 small and large villages and localities on both sides of it. A number of important institutions, including Telephone Industries of Pakistan, National Radio Telecommunication Corporation, Pak-Austria Fachhochschule Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology, Khanpur Dam, a couple of industrial units and Buddhist sites, are also situated along the 28-kilometre road.

It also connects Hazara Motorway from Chechian Interchange.

Following heavy rain in upper parts of Hazara and surroundings of the Haripur city the soka having a number of small and large tributaries gets heavily flooded and water starts flowing over the road in the absence of a bridge, making it difficult and risky for the motorists to cross.

Traffic remains suspended for long whenever there is heavy showers.

The residents of Haripur have criticised the local politicians for failing to construct a bridge on the nullah.

“Hassle-free and unrestricted road travel is the fundamental right of every citizen, but our elected representatives have failed to address the main complaint of their electorates,” Bashir Ahmed, a local resident, deplored.

He said Omar Ayub Khan and his cousins and sitting MPAs Akbar Ayub and Arshad Ayub did not feel the need to build a small bridge on the soka.

He said the lawmakers had also promised building either a bridge or level-crossing on the railway track situated barely 500 yards away from the soka point.

Abdul Latif, another resident, said Sardar Mushtaq Khan and Babar Nawaz Khan of PML-N and Dr Raja Amir Zaman of PTI and his late father, Raja Sikandar Zaman also could not build a bridge on the water channel.

He said though construction of central jail bypass road had eased suffering of motorists to some extent, most drivers still preferred this shortest route to using the GT and Hattar roads to again hit the Railway Road, which took two extra miles.

When contacted, Asad Khan Alizai, a senior official at the district finance office, said the Railway Road was the domain of National Highway Authority, which had prepared a feasibility plan for construction of a culvert on the rainwater course.

The officer concerned at the NHA’s Abbottabad office could not be approached for comments.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2022