STATE TIMES NEWS
Jammu: Hundreds of people here in Nehru market of Jammu risk their lives every day living in ramshackle government flats which outlived their utility years back with little to no hope of a safe rehabilitation from the authorities.
The buildings were declared “unsafe for habitation” by the Jammu Development Authority (JDA) in 2012, yet they house several families and businesses.
Nehru Market happens to be Jammu and Kashmir’s biggest warehouse belt having firms serving the region since the 1950s, when the buildings were first erected.
The three buildings located in the market have 72 quarters and over 50 shops which were constructed in the early 1950s in the heart of the city famed for its temples.
But over the decades, they have been reduced to being rundown structures with their residents eking out with a precarious existence with a very literal danger hanging above their heads.
Besides their old age, these buildings are also alleged by the residents to be the victims of neglect and poor maintenance by the estates department and JDA.
Their occupants have been demanding that they be shifted to a safer place, and worry it will take nothing less than a catastrophe before the authorities wake up. “I feel the government is waiting