There have been a lot of talks and discussions including appreciation about the ongoing project of the present government in Uttarakhand called all weather roads. This over ambitious project inaugurated few years ago in Dehradun by prime minister Narendra Modi is being lauded tremendously by the ruling political dispensation but there had been several controversies as well pertaining to this project with even the apex court initially restricting the widening of roads to the prescribed limit due to environmental hazards.
There had been news exposures also about thousands of trees having been cut in Uttarakhand hills and thousands of tons of muck n rubble being thrown in smooth running rivers clandestinely during the widening of roads thus squeezing the river flow and making them muddy etc. Currently major part of the work on the four lane weather roads is believed to have been completed.
The projected cost of 825 kilometers all weather roads is believed to be 12. O7 thousand crores which may further escalate if the project is delayed by any chance. However, the work seems to be in full swing as claimed by the powers that be. According to a post of senior journalist Shiv Prasad Sati though the overall conditions of all weather roads in Uttarakhand during raining season are highly worrisome but a vast tract of newly build road under this scheme got washed away in this, rainy season literally ridiculing the technology adopted in making of this road in Chamoli district, Garhwal near Pursari.
The road has been so conveniently washed away by the impact of rain that the wide underneath portion of mud took the entire strip of long road along with it damaging it completely not prone to plying of vehicles over it. The picture above, itself is self explanatory. The meaning and concept of construction of all weather roads is primarily – that irrespective of any challenges of bad n inclement weather conditions, monsoon, winters or summer except unforeseen catastrophic disasters they will function with extreme durability and long life, but what makes everyone worried is the fact that not only during raining seasons but in summers n winters as well, landslides are creating lot of hurdles n accidents at several places by the caving in of these all weather roads , losing soil underneath and posing risk to traffic n people of Uttarakhand and tourists visiting the four historic religious destinations as well as Kumon n Garhwal region, creating massive traffic jams for hours together.
It may be recalled that fatal accidents are commen feature in Uttarakhand during rainy season claiming several lives. Such washing away of all weather roads at several areas especially during monsoon amounts to exposure of the utter non serious nature of works carried out the the engineers or contractors involved in the process, unambiguously giving an impression of negligence and substandard work culture. These roads identify themselves as the bad work carried out by all those involved in this over ambitious projects thus amounting to misuse of thousands of crores of rupees of public exchequer, the hard earned money of commoners of the country.
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