Srinagar: PDP president and former Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti on Sunday urged Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to enhance the road conditions leading to Drung, a tourist spot near Tangmarg, due to its significant tourism potential.
“Requesting CM @OmarAbdullah and the Commissioner Secretary @WorksDepartment to kindly intervene and ensure the road is repaired. Drung has all the potential to become a major tourist attraction and deserves its rightful place on JK’s tourism map,” Mufti said in a post on X.
The former chief minister shared that she recently visited the area with her mother Gulshan Nazir.
“Spent precious time with my mother at Dreng, Tangmarg, a breathtakingly beautiful place marked by a mesmerising waterfall. Yet it’s deeply unfortunate that despite its immense natural beauty, the deplorable condition of the road from Tangmarg to Dreng has made this beautiful destination almost inaccessible, particularly for tourists,” Mehbooba Mufti added.
Drang is a recently added destination to Kashmir’s tourism map but instead of focussing on ensuring a comfortable drive from Tangmarg to this destination, the authorities seen busy exploring options to hold locals from getting benefitted by the potential of the destination.
“When the destination was thrown open, we thought that our destiny will change as government promised to be it a tourist destination with local involvement.
“We wanted to upgrade our homes to PG (Paying Guest) but the Police and the Tehsil administration is not allowing us to do that, how can this initiative help locals then,” said a local not identifying himself saying he would “have a price for it.”
Lots of constructions have taken place here but when a local from Drang wants to upgrade his home to make it a PG, Police, and civil authorities come down on him with all whips, locals told reporters who were covering Mufti’s visit.
“Locals have no voice, nobody listens to them and if they have to renovate a few rooms of their decaying rooms, they have to grease the palms of Police and Civil Administration,” said a retired PHE worker.
