Short-sighted planning and poor monitoring riles affected villagers

SPECIAL FOCUS: The PMGSY Road Trouble at Lower Parbing




SUBASH RAI
GANGTOK, 14 Mar: Lack of proper planning by the concerned officials is the main shortcoming leading to the problems being suffered due to the Lower Barbing PMGSY road construction project. The under construction road from Ranka Rai Gaon to Rey Khola Swimming Pool area has become a hazard for the villagers as they are witnessing irreparable loss to their properties. The contractor assigned the job is also suffering problems because the villagers there are threatening to stop the work if the destruction continues.
The problem surfaced in the first week of February when phase-II of the construction started. It was Namgyal Bhutia, a resident, who first noticed that the alignment of the road was not following the original survey which had been endorsed by all villagers. [for background details, click here, here and here]

“I repeatedly requested the contractor to stop the work as the ongoing gradient was bound to cause extensive damage to private property, but the work continued,” he says.
The result, Mr. Bhutia’s land was filled up with debris [from the road-cutting above his land, and a huge boulder broke into his recently-constructed kitchen.
As the construction work proceeded, Sunil Rai, whose house is situated around 200 ft. below the construction site, also received similar damage. He also insists that the ongoing project is not going as per the original survey.
The worst fate awaited Meg Bahadur Rai [read accompanying story elsewhere in the paper]. He lost his house, a cowshed and an entire orchard of more than 100 orange trees and a vegetable patch.
“I wasn’t even given warning to vacate. It happened overnight and I even lost the vegetables which were ripe ready for sale,” he said, adding that if the road was constructed as per the original survey, he wouldn’t have incurred any damage.
He, along with other villagers, tried to meet the contractor and officials of Rural Management and Development Department at the worksite but their efforts remained in vain.
Being an MDR TB patient and father of two motherless school-going children, Mr. Rai was driven in despair to write to the area MLA, Memlom Lepcha, requesting him to look into the matter. That was on 15 February 2011.
By then, the rest of the villagers [around 15 households], whose houses also fall below the present alignment decided not to allow the construction work to proceed further.
On 09 March, an enquiry team comprising of an Assistant Engineer and Junior Engineer from RMDD, two Amins from the District Administrative Centre [East] along with contractor arrived at the spot. The villagers had been waiting since morning.
The villagers asked the enquiry team how the road was allowed to change course from the original survey projections. This is a major complaint since the present alignment is of no use to the people and has now also run into project overlap. The RMDD officials excused themselves by claiming they were new to the posts. The contractor insisted he was following the route assigned to him by the Department during the tender.
This surprised everyone. No one knew when the new survey had taken place.
The surprise turned into shock when the area MLA, who joined the enquiry team a little later, informed that even he was not aware that such a huge project was going on in his area. The ward panchayat seconded the MLA informing that even she was unaware of the ongoing project!
The villagers then informed the MLA that the ongoing construction lies barely 100 meters below the proposed alternate two-lane highway, construction work on which had already begun from the intake point.
“This road will be buried by the alternate highway. Even if it survives, it will not benefit anyone of us because this gradient will give us a road 200 meter above our village through a steep slope, which will be inaccessible,” said a villager Dorjee Rinchen Lepcha adding that if the construction continues, more than half of the villagers will be rendered homeless by the dumping it causes.
Though the contractor was missing from the scene at the time, the area MLA directed the officials to connect the village by the same road by lowering its gradient. He further directed the officials, supervisors and contractor to lift away the debris to authorized dumping sites and avoid dumping on the private property.
The construction site lies above the main footpath used regularly by students and the villagers and the area MLA directed that two men, equipped with whistles to sound warnings, be posted to avoid any untoward incidents. He also directed that an RMDD official be deputed to the site. Earlier, pedestrians had to risk injury to life and limb to make the crossing here as debris continued to be dumped from above.
The MLA further instructed the officials that compensation be immediately disbursed to the affected families as all of them are subsistence farmers and cannot cushion the loss by themselves. The contractor was assigned with the responsibility to hand over immediate relief. Further, to avoid mass destruction, the contractor was directed to deploy smaller size excavator for the road-cutting works.
After five days, while visiting the construction site, it was found that the lower grading of the road had begun and two men with whistles posted to control pedestrian traffic. Meg Bahadur Rai also confirmed that he had received some financial assistance from the contractor.
What has not happened though is that reckless dumping continues. One of the reasons cited is that the tipper, which would cart away the excavated earth, could not be deployed because a bridge linking the main road at Ranka Rai Gaon and the construction site has not been constructed. 
Now, one more surprise for the villagers - the road connecting their village will be ending in the middle of their village because, PMGSY norms do not allow connecting a PMGSY road with another!