INTO THE SLIDE: The Jawaharlal Nehru Marg from Gangtok to Tsomgo and on to Nathula has always been susceptible to slides which slip out consistently with every monsoon. The September 2011 earthquake has further weakened the slopes and the biggest challenge for Project Swastik of the Border Roads Organisation, under whose watch all the strategic roads in Sikkim fall, is a 200 metre slope failure at 17 Mile en route to Tsomgo. Negotiating this stretch even on rain-free days is harrowing and the importance of keeping this road open is forcing some out of the box thinking. As the above picture illustrates, a new alignment is being bulldozed through the slide even as a lost section of original road can be spied on the lower left corner.

Boulder comes loose at road-widening spot on JN Road, kills one

GANGTOK, 21 Oct: A freak accident on JN Road [Gangtok-Tsomgo] today claimed one life. Norbu Sherpa, a resident of 7th Mile, JN Road, was hit by a falling boulder at 9th Mile which threw him down about 200 feet off the road.

Tsomgo traffic to move in set to time slots

ANAND OBEROI
GANGTOK, 05 May: The unreliability of the Jawaharlal Nehru Road [JNR] to Tsomgo and Nathula has proved a major setback for everyone involved in the tourism sector here. Frequent breakdowns in the connectivity status has led to stranded tourists requiring elaborate, and often dangerous, evacuation efforts. Now, the tourism stakeholders and BRO officials have agreed on a timing regime to streamline traffic on this axis to ensure better monitoring for everyone’s convenience.
Vehicles headed for Tsomgo and Nathula are now required to be on their way up by 11 a.m., after which no tourist vehicle will be allowed through the check-post above Gangtok. These vehicles will now have to start the return journey from Tsomgo latest by 3 p.m.
With JN Road blocked at two major trouble spots at 9th Mile and 13th Mile, the road has remained closed for the past three days. With 112 vehicles packed with tourists stranded on the wrong side of the slides on 2 May eventually evacuated, a meeting between all concerned authorities and stakeholders has thought it necessary to streamline responses to such situations.