Concerned citizens from Rudraprayag, Uttarkashi and other places affected by the execution of the all-weather road project have raised serious concerns while accusing the Government of circumventing the regulations and duping the public for carrying out this project.
Addressing the media at the Press Club, Himanshu Arora from Citizens For Green Doon, Kesar Singh Pawar from Uttarkashi and Sushila Bhandari from Rudraprayag among others, raised various questionable aspects of the all-weather road project. They said that the project which is an undivided 900 kilometres in length has been divided into 53 segments of 20-30 kilometres each with each segment being shown as a separate project.
According to the rules, environmental clearance is required for widening of a road beyond 100 kilometres so dividing the 900 kilometre long stretch into several segments was used as a means by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to circumvent this requirement.
This was also ignored by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. Despite the geological and environmental sensitivity of the Himalaya, the mountains are being cut upto 30 metres deep for this road project with thousands of trees covering hundreds of hectares of forest land being destroyed and more being proposed for the project.
Thousands of tonnes of muck and sludge have been dumped into the rivers which can cause disaster during the rains. Farming, forests, water sources, fodder, wildlife and other natural resources have been suffering negative side effects for some time and such projects threaten to gradually change the entire culture and identity of the region.
The concerned citizens further stressed that such projects are contrary to the Himalayan environment and culture. They emphasised that the locals are facing problems and even accidents due to the work on this project which is also weakening the natural shields which account for the safety of the mountainsides.