You are winding your way home on a dusky cold evening when suddenly and without warning you feel the dreaded thump of doom. Your vehicle wheel drops into a pothole and you instantly feel that something is amiss with your car or a bike. You get out of the vehicle to assess the damage which seems to be expensive to fix. But what do you doIJ Complain to the municipal authority, National Highway authority or the district authorities. Or simply come back home cribbing for a loss to the tune of few thousands. The Pioneer talked to some of the residents of Haridwar and the district officials to find a way out.
It is a common experience while driving on the roads of the holy city that one has to search for road as potholes are more than the patches of road. These potholes have not only done damage to the speedy vehicles, but have also taken many lives in the recent past. More than a dozen people were inflicted with injuries in the last month due to these bumpy roads. A photographer had lost his life a year ago while driving his two-wheeler that had toppled over the sand stones on the road and people of Bhupatwala jammed the traffic on the highway in protest to the increasing road accidents just a fortnight ago. Not only the National Highway is dug up for broadening throughout the city but even the connecting roads to the Highway are in bad shape.
A resident of Shivalik Nagar Shuminder Singh Gill says, “The condition of the busiest road connecting BHEl, a Navratan company to the National Highway 58 is the worst. When one takes a turn from Bahadrabad T-point to BHEl, the 1 km stretch ahead is the worst damaged road of Haridwar. There are often chock-o-block conditions at the first barrier of BHEl and the area has become accident prone due to the condition of the road. Hundreds of people working in BHEl, SIDCUl and administration offices in Roshanabad commute through this road every day.”
While the executive engineer Public Works Department D M Chaudhry says, “At the end of December last year, the road repair works were carried out in that area. The road is fit for commuting.” But the ground reality pictures show two wheelers jostling their way on pebbles and stony potholes to their destinations.
When asked to comment on the issue, the district magistrate Harbans Singh Chugh said, “The concerned department has been given the instructions. Public works department is in the process of repairing the roads at war level and the work shall be completed soon.”
If the pothole concerned is on a highway, it’s the responsibility of the Highways Authority. If the pothole is on a by lane, it is the local council’s lookout. All efforts by the Uttarakhand government to shorten distances to neighbouring states seem to be a big joke for Haridwar district at least due to bad condition of the national highway between Haridwar and Chandigarh people are being forced to take longer routes (via Dehradun), which has increased travelling time by at least one full hour.
This is just a tip of an iceberg. Nearly 6 years have passed when the Ardh Kumbh mela works had begun. The four- lane way is still underway and the Ardh Kumbh mela is two weeks ahead. The local commuters are bound to encounter traffic snarls due to these construction works and the road works continues to be a challenge for the holy city.