People of inaccessible areas who used to remain stranded for weeks together in the plains of Kashmir are no longer remaining stranded even for few days now as the authorities of the border districts are arranging air sorties from time to time for airlifting the stranded passenger to make the travel of people of inaccessible hilly areas to their native places accessible in a short span of one or two hours. Arranging air sorties for the stranded passengers of border areas after snowfall is a big respite to the border populations of inaccessible areas. Karnah in Kupwara and Gurez in Bandipora districts are the hilly areas which remain disconnected for about six months and during this period the accessibility of the people to critical healthcare facilities was never ever taken as much serious by any popular government of erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir as it has been taken now by the incumbent Government in Jammu & Kashmir. In a very sorry state of affairs the inaccessibility of the people of inaccessible hilly areas could not be reduced by successive popular governments during several decades of their rule in erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir state despite the fact that they spent hundreds of crores of rupees on building infrastructure for prompt road connectivity, regular water supply, accessibility to quality health services and other such facilities.
Arranging air sorties to these hilly areas is just an adhoc initiative than can be continued for a couple of years and ultimately upgrading the road infrastructure for all weather hassle free transport services to such hilly areas is the only way to improve the delivery of all basic social services like ration, transport services and the likes to border populations in such inaccessible areas.
If the previous Governments would have connected such inaccessible hilly areas by roads, their inaccessibility to basic social services like ration, water, education and health too would have been reduced to a greater extent and today the need for arranging air sorties during winters won’t also arise at all. It is also an irrefutable fact that roads connecting such hilly areas are very vulnerable to accidents during peak summer months when the passenger transport services to such hilly areas are restored. Arranging air sorties to these hilly areas is just an adhoc initiative than can be continued for a couple of years and ultimately upgrading the road infrastructure for all weather hassle free transport services to such hilly areas is the only way to improve the delivery of all basic social services like ration, transport services and the likes to border populations in such inaccessible areas. In the present scenario arranging manageable transport services to people of inaccessible hilly areas during harshest periods of winter is the best way to facilitate the accessibility of the people of inaccessible hilly areas to basic social services during the harshest periods of winter which are likely to end by February end this year as usual..
