37 km Mughal Road stretch cleared of snow

RAJOURI: The snow clearance work launched on the Mughal Road is going on at full pace with 37 km of road stretch has been cleared so far and now around 7 km of road upto Pir Ki Gali was remaining.

Mughal Road connects Poonch district with Shopian district and acts as an alternate to the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway.

However, the Mughal Road remains closed for around six months during winter as the road passes through mountains of Pir Panjal ranges that receive heavy snowfall.

Now, with the onset of summer, road-opening work through snow clearance has been started and the Mechanical Engineering Department (MED) of Jammu and Kashmir government is carrying out snow clearance operation on the tough hilly terrains of Surankote sub division in Poonch district.

Assistant Engineer Tariq Ahmed said that the level of snow accumulation was a bit less if we compare it with the previous years.

“Snow accumulation is a bit less due to the lesser snowfall this season due to which we are expecting to clear the road a bit early this year,” he said. A junior engineer of MED, Mubashir Zargar said that on Monday 37 km of the road had been cleared of snow.

“From the Bufliaz side, we have cleared 37 km of road of snow while around 7 km remain to be cleared to reach Pir Ki Gali,” he said. “The work is going on at full pace but the main challenging portion in the context of snow clearance is near Pir Ki Gali which is also prone to avalanches.”