April 20, 2010: Giving in to people’s demands for reopening the Leh-Srinagar Highway earlier this year, J&K Minister for Finance and Ladakh Affairs, Abdul Rahim Rather in a high-level meeting held here today said that the Highway, after remaining closed during the winter months, would be reopened for heavy vehicular movement from April 22 this month whereas the light vehicles have already started using the road from April 17th.
The Convoy timings approved by the meeting are:
- Heavy vehicles to cross Drass-Gumari stretch between 6 a.m. to 10 a.m.
- Heavy vehicles from Srinagar to cross Sonamarg-Drass stretch between 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- No time restriction for light vehicles except during road repairing, which will be undertaken by the BEACON between 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.
As per estimates, 18300 truck trips are required to build bumper stocks of food grains and other essential commodities including construction material and fertilizers.
The meeting also proposed various initiatives including plans to put in place a comprehensive disaster management plan including first aid facilities to meet any exigency of emergency situations in the wake of routine weather vagaries on the highway, setting up of a monitoring cell at Sonamarg to oversee flow of essential commodities and quality of food grains and exploring all possibilities to install an additional weighbridge at Sonamarg to cope up with the rush of vehicles.
As per records, about 250 to 300 trucks pass through the existing weighbridge per day. The Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution department and Food Corporation of India have planned to complete stocking/dumping of foodgrains and essential commodities for 18 months by the month of September this year as compared to 16 months last year.