Firm Up Better Against Monsoon Collapses

Editorial:-

Evening drizzles [okay, they are more intense than just drizzles] have become a regular occurrence now. And for those live along the highway, as well as those who need to travel by road to anywhere, which would be just about everyone now, will have noticed that the storm-water drains are still not performing any better. Along with the surface runoff, the highway in Gangtok is also inundated at several places after a heavy shower by effluents which smell offensively dangerous and move like sludge no one should be wading through. Occasionally, some efforts are made to unclog the drains, but the experience ever since they were commissioned bears out that they will block immediately with the next rain. The point being made here is that even as all conversations and obsessions continue to remain centered around the election results and the latest conspiracy theories and projections, life is still going on in Sikkim and the monsoons are building up. The calling cards have been served with the evening showers and how they have unraveled civic infrastructure, so it is important that the concerned officials and agencies make time from their political gossip to address the reality of approaching monsoons.

It is only a matter of time before the national highway, which has remained an expansion work in progress for far too long, collapses under the weight of pre-monsoon inundation. Higher up along the same axis, the pipelines carrying water to the Selep reservoir will also eventually snap, as will the road to Tsomgo and Nathula. The weather pattern suggests that 2014 will record a normal, if not heavier, monsoon and the crumbling tendency of civic infrastructure should have everyone worried. Both, the highway expansion and the Ratey Chu supply line repairs are projects which make headlines every monsoon. Shouldn’t these have stabilized by now, and if not, isn’t it now that preventive measures need to be undertaken. Granted, the rains can be very devastating, but surely, a State that has lived with rains and slides since forever should have learned to prepare better by now. But maybe we are over-speculating. Maybe the concerned departments and offices are on the job already firming Sikkim up better for the monsoons. Do you think that is the case?