UPA makes mess of National Highways
Despite its many promises to effectively integrate the North-East with the rest of the country, the Congress-led UPA regime has not only failed to improve the region's existing road transport infrastructure but has actually made it worse. National Highway 40, that runs through Meghalaya and connects to Mizoram, Tripura and Assam, was supposed to be converted into a four- lane motorway, but it has just been broken down instead. The 216km-long highway is the main arterial pathway that ensures sustenance for the Seven Sister States, and the UPA Government had vowed that by upgrading the highway, it would change the face of the North-East.
Yet three years after the mega expansion project called ‘Special Accelerated Road Development Programme in North East' was launched, the make-over seems to have gone horribly wrong. Envisaged in the early years of the UPA's first term, the ambitious project aimed to upgrade national highways connecting State capitals in the region from two to four lanes, provide connectivity to all 88 district headquarters apart from improving transport links to neighbouring countries. But even now, at the fag end of UPA2's tenure, the work is far from complete. Construction along the crucial 100-km long stretch that connects the capital cities of Shillong and Guwahati has come to a standstill. Consequently, road blocks and traffic snarls have become the norm as, what once used to be a highway has been reduced to a big muddy mess.
This has not only increased the commuting time — last year a Union Minister on his way to Shillong supposedly got stuck in a traffic snarl so bad that he had to ditch his car and hitch a ride on a motorcycle — but has also created perilous driving conditions. For instance, in places where natural vegetation has been removed and the hills violated to allow for the widening of roads, landslides pose a constant risk. Not only are the locals suffering, even tourists who play an important role in boosting the North-East's economic situation, have chosen to stay away.
The Government may like to blame it all on inclement weather, and while that may have been one factor for the delay in work, a quick comparison of the present situation with the progress made under the BJP-led NDA regime reveals this regime's colossal failure. Indeed, it was under the leadership of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee that NH 40 was re-activated; but instead of building upon that development, the UPA has frittered away the gift instead. And this is true not just of the North-East but across the country too.
A visionary leader, Mr Vajpayee understood the importance of road connectivity and how it could act as a potent driver of economic growth and social integration. His Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, which aimed to provide all-weather roads to all Indian villages, for instance, was a landmark project. But the Congress-led regime that succeeded him simply failed to see it through to its full potential. In fact, as the UPA Government acknowledged before the Supreme Court early this week, in the five years that Mr Vajpayee's NDA Government was at the helm, it constructed nearly 50 per cent of the national highway that has been laid in the past 32 years.