Lakhanpur-Jammu highway shortens journey by 40 min

Lakhanpur-Jammu highway shortens journey by 40 min
Archit Watts
Tribune News Service

Lakhanpur, April 14
The four-laning of 91-km Lakhanpur-Jammu National Highway (1-A), which is almost complete, has not only reduced traffic snarls but also shortened the journey by 40 minutes.

Being a Central government-sponsored project, which was started by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) in year 2005 at an estimated cost of around Rs 158 crore, the road has been carpeted right from the main gateway of the state at Lakahnpur to Jammu and dividers installed.

However, eight bridges (each less than one km in length) of nearly 30 bridges on the highway are yet to be completed. A senior official of the NHAI said the work on the highway had been completed up to 80 to 85 per cent and the remaining 15 per cent would be done by this year end. “The road has been widened and carpeted. Now, a few bridges are left on which construction work is going on. Of the total 91-km stretch, only 5 km of road, which runs under the bridges, awaits completion,” he said.

The NHAI official said once the four-laning of the highway was complete it would save 40 to 60 minutes of travel time. “The journey on this road, which earlier took nearly around two-and-half hours, has shortened by 40 to 45 minutes,” he added.

Driving a car on this highway, this correspondent observed that traffic jams, which were earlier the order of the day, were not to be seen, as hardly any obstruction was found during the peak hours.

A number of newly-constructed bridges had been thrown open to traffic, though the work on the highway was in progress at Kalibari, Sakte Chak, Dayala Chak, Samba Cantonment, on the outskirts of Samba, near Chichi Mata Temple, Barian and Vijaypur.

It is the only trade link of the state with other parts of the country, besides the route of the pilgrims of Mata Vaishno Devi and the Amarnath cave shrine. Tourists also enter the state via this road.