Tura, July 6: The journey from Dakopgre and New Tura through Araimile and further into the town of Tura has turned a nightmare for residents after the AMPT road at the junction has been turned into a one way.
While the travel would take about 15-20 minutes even during peak hours earlier, the same is now taking over an hour just to travel a distance of about 6-7 kms. The situation has been the same for more than a month, with daily traffic jams becoming a common feature. The congestion often stretches into kms in most of the days.
Currently, traffic is being routed from near the Araimile junction through Najing Bazaar, most of which is on steep inclines. The narrow and dilapidated stretch has posed problems for all that use the route.
“The situation is becoming unbearable as we are unable to move normally. What happens in the case of emergencies? Is there any logic behind the decision to make this a one way? We cannot see any valid reason for such doings,” said Dakopgre resident, John D Sangma.
Sangma, who has a shop at the ITI Araimile junction says to commute along the route now takes close to 30 minutes while it would take just 5 minutes earlier.
Similar is the thought of a resident of Jail Road, Senora Johny Arengh who stated that it had become a nightmare to think of travel to the bazaar and beyond.
“I needed to go to Dainadubi this morning and it took me half an hour just to reach Araimile junction and another half an hour to get to the Tura Civil Hospital. We urge the authorities to look at the situation as it is causing tremendous inconvenience to all,” said Johny.
“Imagine this is the situation when schools are closed. We dread to think about what will happen once schools are reopened after the summer holiday. The entire situation could get worse,” he added.
The resident stated that the locality residents were going to submit a complaint on their grievances to the deputy commissioner if the same situation continued.
Meanwhile, when contacted on the matter, the Superintendent of Police (SP) did not respond to messages sent to him till the time of filing this report.