Chief Minister Harish Rawat having initiated civil aviation facilities across Uttarakhand by going for new helipads, the common people say that instead of pumping such large amount of money in such ventures, the state government should focus on improving the roads, particularly those in the hills, where near-daily accidents are taking increasing toll of human lives. Besides, the roads ravaged by the flash flood 2013 are yet to be fully restored, they say.
Prakash Thapliyal, a senior citizen, said that the massive initiatives to ensure easy air travel for a few should have been supplemented by such efforts of the same magnitude to improve the condition of the roads both in the hills and the plains. “The state government can hardly ignore the fact that while a few people avail the air routes millions of people use the roads to travel to and fro. Both should go hand in hand while a focus should be trained more on things that impact the common people” he said.
Sarita Dangwal, another resident of Dehradun, said that it was a colossal waste of the public money of a cash-strapped state to go for building a raft of helipads while ignoring the imperative of bettering the basic infrastructure like building roads and ensuring water supply and flow of electricity in every village of the hill state. “The focus is definitely in the wrong direction and the sooner the direction reverses the better,” she said.
Vibhav Joshi, a student, said that the helicopter facilities in the hilly region should be used only in times of emergencies like natural calamities to save the lives of the people. “But during the normal time, the use of such choppers should be restricted, for they disturbs the serenity and the environmental balance of the hilly areas,” he said. Kaustubh Bahuguna, another student, echoed the same sentiment, saying that things meant to help a handful of VIPs should not bulldoze the basic needs of the common people who need better roads to travel safely.