Describing Sopore as a historic town, the CM said the place is bestowed with great intellectual and entrepreneurial potential, which remained subdued over the last two decades.
Two-decade long wait for Sopore Bypass Bridge finally came to end on Monday when CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed inaugurated the 216-metre long bridge after its construction started 23 years ago.
CM, on the occasion, asserted that he has fulfilled his promise that he had made with the people during his last visit to apple town on July 23. “I had given my word last month and today I have fulfilled my promise,” Mufti said adding that he had directed Border Roads Organization (BRO) to get the bridge ready by August.
Describing Sopore as a historic town, the CM said the place is bestowed with great intellectual and entrepreneurial potential, which remained subdued over the last two decades. He said the town has had an important place in the socio-cultural milieu of the valley and elders would still remember it being called as the Chota London of Kashmir.
Meanwhile, the Mufti government claims that the bridge will facilitate the people of Sopore in many ways.
“It will annihilate distances”
CM said that the opening of the Sopore Bypass Bridge comes as a major relief to the people as it will de-congest the main Sopore town and rid it from frequent traffic jams. “The bridge will facilitate movement of heavy vehicles away from the town and connect Sopore outskirts with Kupwara and Baramulla,” he mentioned.
“It will boost economy by helping fruit growers”
MLA Syed Basharat Bukhari, in his address, said the new bypass bridge would not only connect people of North Kashmir with the rest of the state, but also provide a lifeline to the economic activities of the region, in particular the export-oriented fruit business.
Asserting that the new bridge will benefit nearly 1.5 lakh growers and traders in the apple town, Syed Altaf Bukhari said the government has already started work to improve all major roads to provide better connectivity to the people. He made specific reference of road projects like Sopore-Ladoora, Higam-Tarzua, and Fakir Bagh-Sultanpora and added that these would be taken in hand shortly.
Praising Public Works, BRO and the district administration for speeding up construction of the remaining 30 per cent work on the bridge, which coincides with the beginning of the apple season when fruit-laded trucks move to markets outside the state, Mufti shared, “I want to see Sopore come up as a premier fruit marketing hub for which it needs better roads and a fully-equipped fruit mandi,” he said and added that his government has already started working on it in a mission mode.
Interestingly, locals all this while, had constructed their own set of myths
The construction work for the bridge was started by Border Roads Organisation in 1992 at the time when Rajiv Gandhi was the prime minister of the country.
While the bridge was being constructed in last 23 years, it also prompted locals to create theories and myths to justify the undue delay in construction process. “Some believed that Indian government was trying to evade a war with the neighbour country by delaying construction, others believed that construction was not getting completed due to supernatural powers,” shares Naveed Khan, a local, and adds, “None of these theories have any basis though.” Several locals were of the view that a war would break out between India and Pakistant once construction of bridge is completed.
Some Soporeans also share the association of myths with construction of bridges has had a long history in Kashmir.
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