About J&K’s Roads |
In Jammu and Kashmir, people often say that our roads rise every year while our homes sink a little more into the ground. It sounds like an exaggeration, but anyone who lives along the main roads of towns and villages knows how real this is. Every year, a fresh layer of blacktop is added on top of the old one. No one removes the damaged layer beneath. No one bothers to check the base strength. And no one seems concerned about how these rising road levels are slowly burying dozens of residential houses, shop fronts, drainage channels, and even small farmlands. This is not happening because we lack knowledge, but because we are not using it.
Across the world, road construction is a science and engineering. Damaged surface is removed, the base is checked, the slope is corrected, and fresh layers are added only after proper removal (milling) of the old surface. This process is standard in countries like Japan, Germany, and South Korea, where even a village road lasts 10–15 years without major repairs. But here in J&K, the system seems stuck in repeat mode. The same mistakes are made every year. Old roads are not milled. Drains are not cleaned. Waterlogging is ignored. And contractors often treat “blacktopping” as a quick annual routine, not a scientific task. This won’t be an exaggerated statement to say that roads in J&K are the major source of dust pollution.
The problem begins with a minds set. In J&K, road repair is seen as a yearly obligation, especially just before the tourist season or just before winter. The goal is not durability; the goal is to show that something has been done. When work is treated like a formality, quality becomes the first casualty. Machines used in advanced road engineering include milling machines, graders, hot-mix temperature sensors, compaction meters, and these are rarely........