India seems to have lost strategic gains in the extremely fragile north-eastern front, with surface transportation access remaining cut-off to the India-Tibet border from district headquarter Pithoragarh for many days.
The matter of concern is that even places like Dharchula, which is located on the Kali river bank along the India-Nepal border, and is one of the important destinations on the India-Tibet border road, remains cut off from the main Pithoragarh for long. And beyond Dharchula, the motorable road which is only upto Tawaghat, also remained blocked at many places on the way to the India-Tibet border.
The condition of the Himalayan terrain is so devastating due to cloud bursts and rivers’ fury that there is no way to traverse the upper Himalayan region even by foot to reach the India-Tibet border’ final point, as the officials concerned have said. Suspension of the important annual Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and the ancient India-Tibet border trade which are conducted by foot beyond Tawaghat only reflect that reality.
Whereas the Government of India had to suspend the annual Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage at the initial stage when the second batch of this aforesaid pilgrimage had returned from Almora on June 20 on account of poor road conditions, the historic India-Tibet border trade, a symbol of ancient civilisation and traditional and friendly ties between the two neighbours, which was supposed to be started from June 1, has not yet been started due to similar reasons of deteriorating road conditions coupled with adverse weather scenario.
At the backdrop of these prevailing conditions, air transportation services had given a ray of hope at least to evacuate the people who have been stranded in different places of Pithorgarh’s upper reaches. But adverse weather conditions which continue to remain damaged since June 15 or so, have only snatched that option too from the district administrative machinery engaged in carrying out relief operations in calamity ravaged areas in Pithoragarh.
“Though we have so far been able to evacuate about 1,000 people stranded in different disaster-hit areas in upper zones of Pithoragarh, many people still remain stranded in these areas,” RK Sudhanshu, Commissioner, Kumaon division, told The Pioneer on Friday. “However, due to poor weather conditions, even the air transportation service that we have, has not been very effective in conducting the evacuation process,” he added.
Talking about the road conditions in Pithoragarh, the Commissioner, maintained that it seems it will take at least three days in restoring the Pithoragarh-Dharchual national highway.
When asked the road condition beyond Dharchula upto Tawaghat, Sudhanshu however, said that it is difficult to say exactly how long it will take to open road on way to Tawaghat which is blocked in many places given the poor weather conditions. However, when his attention was drawn to the fact that India has lost strategic gains in this sector in Pithoragarh following poor road connectivity, he said this is the reality. “But our efforts are on to restore the road connectivity as early as possible,” he added.