Srinagar is once again at a turning point. The recent revival by the R&B Department of a flyover-cum-bridge connecting Convent Road in Rajbagh to the Sangarmal corridor has triggered deep concern among planners, hydrologists, environmentalists, and residents. A blurry walkthrough circulated unofficially suggests that a Detailed Project Report may have been prepared, yet nothing about the proposal reflects the level of professional rigour, planning logic, or public transparency required for a project of this magnitude.

This is not a routine road extension or neighbourhood improvement.
This is a proposal to carve a concrete expressway through Srinagar’s most sensitive riverfront, its most densely inhabited school zone, and the heart of its central business district. It is a proposal that violates the Master Plan, contradicts decades of mobility planning, threatens the Jhelum’s already fragile flood behaviour, and jeopardizes the city’s largest public spaces and school precincts. And worst of all: the flyover does not solve congestion. It relocates it—and makes it worse.

This is not conjecture. It is what traffic science, hydrology, urban design, and global experience all tell us.

Without DPR, Process, and Logic

According to information available, the project appears to have emerged without credible traffic modelling, hydrological analysis, stormwater studies, road geometry checks, or urban design assessments. The circulated visuals lack technical clarity and seem to have been created outside any formal professional framework.

Past Master Plans—from 1971 onwards—rejected similar proposals at far smaller scale. The current plan appears to bypass every safeguard that planning law requires. Bids floated earlier for mobility solutions at Convent and Parimpora were either cancelled or remained inconclusive. How a new DPR surfaced without re-tendering remains unexplained. Who prepared it? Under what mandate? On what data? These are not procedural details; they go to the heart of legitimacy.

The absence of due process is not a technical omission. It is a planning red flag.

A Step Backward

The proposed location is among the most sensitive and complex in Srinagar’s urban geography:
• a dense residential precinct,
• three major educational institutions,
• narrow internal roads,
• the Bund promenade,
•........

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