The highway bridges on the Char Dham Yatra route need to be upgraded in order to optimise the use of this important highway circuit. Stating this, the chairman of International Road Federation (IRF) KK Kapila states that the Char Dham Yatra to Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri is an important annual fixture and the 900 kilometres stretch of National Highways connecting Rishikesh to these destinations is busy during the season. “The fact that these National Highways are utilised to sub-optimal levels due to permanent bottlenecks has been ignored for long. The resulting loss in revenue and the negative effect on development in the area it appears has been accepted as a fait-accompli. This could be corrected before the next Yatra if there is a will,” he said.
PKapila goes on to recall that prime minister Narendra Modi had in the previous year laid the foundation stone of 900 kilometre long Char Dham highway development project-- an ambitious plans to upgrade the route and make it better, which will happen with time. But in the meanwhile the existing roads are being utilised with restricted capacity, because of bridges that are below National Highway specifications. “A recent visit by a team from an infrastructure consultancy firm found that on Char Dham double lane highway route there are 32 such bridges that are single lane and allow restricted loading from 10 tonnes to 16.5 tonnes only against 70 tonnes as per highway norms. These 32 single lane bridges include include 13 bridges on NH 134 Dharasu – Yamnotri route, five bridges on NH 34 Dharasu – Gangotri route, eight bridges on NH 107 Rudrapryag –Gaurikund highway route and six bridges on NH 7 Rishikesh –Badrinath highway route.”
According to Kapila, the effect of this on traffic is multi-fold. First a single lane bridge on a two lane road is a bottle-neck that causes bunching of traffic and requires vehicles to wait at each bridge for their turn to cross. When there is more traffic, these bridges need to be manned to regulate traffic from both sides. The bunching of traffic also results in speeding after halting at the bottle-neck, creating a concertina effect in traffic movement which is not desirable from a safety angle. Most importantly, the time to travel easily goes up by almost 25 per cent with a proportionate increase in fuel consumption and an increased carbon foot print.
What is even more disabling is the load restriction of 10 to 16.5 Tons. Due to this, the trucks have to be smaller. Transportation cost is therefore sub optimal. Heavy construction equipment or machinery cannot reach the under developed areas. Construction work and development is directly affected by it. Some of the NHs link up with border posts too. Operationally these bottle-necks would be critical.
He adds that most of these roads have been upgraded to double lane but upgradation of the bridges has not kept pace. In most cases the site at which the bridge is constructed is the only one available. Alternate sites in the mountains are not an easy proposition. They involve detours and rock cutting, and bridging longer gaps. “The highway therefore is being used to well below the planned capacity because of these bridges.
Some of the bridges are more critical to ease traffic than others. Should this wait till the planned upgrade of the Char Dham routes or can the more critical be addressed before the Yatra season next year to improve traffic movement and commercial activityIJ In my opinion the answer is definitely a yes. The solution therefore is not to wait for the entire road to be upgraded which may take a few years. In the interim the more critical bridges could be identified and replaced by Quick launch Bridges with the desired specifications. It would involve preparatory work on the abutments where required and then launch of the bridge with disruption of traffic for at best a month, which can be in the lean season,” he added.