It is disheartening that despite being a critical issue the authorities continue to demonstrate a lack of urgency in improving the wayside amenities and toilet facilities along the major highways and roads across the Union Territory.
One can gauge this indifference of the concerned authority by the fact that the government has constituted a committee in November 2024 for reviewing and monitoring the existing and proposed wayside amenities along major highways/roads and for suggesting self-sustained model for physical and functional maintenance of these amenities. The committee was headed by Administrative Secretary, Agriculture Production Department as Chairperson, while Administrative Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department was nominated as member, Administrative Secretary Tourism Department as Member Secretary and Administrative Secretary, Public Work (R&B) Department as member.
The purpose of this committee was to undertake a comprehensive review of all existing and proposed/ upcoming/ under-development wayside amenities along major roads connecting tourism sites for assessing their physical as well as functional status and suggesting steps for improvement. The committee was also supposed to suggest uniform distance and size norms vis-à-vis toilet complexes linked to the tentative numbers of daily commuters.
Going by the fact that Principal Secretary of the Agriculture Production Department has reviewed the status of wayside amenities and toilet facilities along major roads after about four months of the formation of the committee, one can guess the significance given to this important issue concerning the stakeholders of the region having tourism as one of its mainstays of economy.
Reportedly, the review meeting in this context focused on improving facilities for local commuters and the growing number of tourists visiting the Union Territory, a thing which should have been the top priority, as J&K cannot afford to go sluggish when the matter is of providing facilities to the tourists.
The situation on ground is pathetic especially with regard to toilet facilities along major roads and highways because in most of the cases the infrastructure is missing and places where there is availability of such facilities, the condition of the same are dismal. Though instructions have been given to develop the required facilities in the aforesaid review meeting, what is missing is the timeline thus giving a long rope to those who are supposed to execute things in this context.
It would have been much better that for every phase of work to create and maintain the aforesaid facilities, a deadline should have been given to ensure that the aforesaid facilities see the light of the day during the active lives of the people of the present generation.
