Friday, October 21, 2011

What’s With the Roads...

Editorial:
The highways are the modern world’s great rivers. Just as most ancient civilisations came up on the banks of major rivers and their tributaries, so too in the present times does every developmental initiative demand the presence of good roads and townships find their prosperity dependent on the quality of roads passing through it.
Teesta bazaar in West Bengal, which used to receive all Sikkim and Kalimpong bound traffic till the old bridge was in use, was a thriving township till a little over a decade ago. The new bridge turned NH 31A a kilometre short of this town and now it does not even have a petrol pump anymore and relies on its weekly haat and fruit and vegetable stall near the new bridge for sustenance. Almost simultaneously, tourist traffic to Sikkim increased and Melli along the highway boomed, incorporating, apart from its eateries, even white-water rafting options. That is what the presence or loss of roads can achieve. Digressing a bit here, one could add that the Government need not allot sites and sponsor settlements where it wants satellite townships developed. It needs to just extend good roads to the proposed areas. Take the present District Administrative Centre at Upper Sichey for example. Soon after the office shifted there and the road was carpeted properly, the area grow into a bustling township, complete with PCO booths and restaurants. A suburb where taxis used to refuse to ply until the DAC came up, now there is a share-cab crowd which makes parking impossible for private vehicle users.
Roads have always been in the news in Sikkim, more for their susceptibility to frequent breakdowns than their contribution to connecting people. In the wake of the 18 September Earthquake, roads are back as a concern. Their unreliability has compromised not only relief and rehabilitation efforts, keeping helicopters in the skies for more than a month now, but also the one activity which could have helped Sikkim recover faster from the trauma of the earthquake – tourism. While it is normal for tourist arrivals to slump in the wake of a natural disaster of the scale of the 18 Sept Earthquake, what remains a worrying concern is that the shoddy construction of Sikkim roads has ensured that even those tourists who are here this season cannot reach most of the favoured destinations and have to negotiate bone-rattling rides even to cover the tourist spots around  towns which still claim to have functional roads. The NH 31A is an embarrassing example of poor engineering and even drives to hotels in the capital mimic the jolts and bounces of a white water experience. It is not acceptable to allow those responsible to blame the earthquake for this condition. Irrespective of how one justifies Sikkim’s need for good roads – whether the bogey of national security or the need for development and tourism to ride on reliable roads – the question that needs to be asked is the same – how is it that roads to and within Sikkim are so poorly made? Tsomgo is undoubtedly the most visited tourist spot in Sikkim, and yet, the road to it is still too unsafe to allow tourist traffic. A review of the road is slated for 24 October, and while tourist permits might start getting stamped again, the patchwork, band-aid job will definitely unravel the next time it rains or if the earth heaves again. Further up is Nathula, the pass into Tibet, a location so ‘sensitive’ in the minds of security planners that they won’t allow foreigners to it. And yet, the road remains too unsafe more than a month since the earthquake.
It is too implausible to believe that Sikkim’s terrain is too unsteady to have reliable roads. Technology is definitely available to make more resilient roads for Sikkim. It is obvious then that those responsible are either not interested or just too poorly informed in their craft to look in the right places for answers. And one does not need to look far. Even someone with no training in engineering will notice the pitiful quality of retaining walls and the recklessness of ‘back-cutting’ that beset the NH 31A [and all other roads] at every turn and every troublespot. What Sikkim needs to ask is how this obvious shoddiness escaped the notice of the experts.

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