Expanding Himalayan highways: In rush to complete work, adverse impacts to ecology are often ignored
On February 13 in reply to a question raised in the Parliament (Lok Sabha) the government replied that there are 226 accident prone spots on highways in Himachal Pradesh and there are 200 such spots in Jammu and Kashmir.
Himalayan roads and highways need special safety measures as an accident here can lead to much more loss of life when vehicles tumble down steep hillsides. Those who had hoped that the widening of highways will lead to greater safety are often disappointed when the safety record does not improve in many such stretches.
The number of trees that are cut down in many stretches of widening of highways is very large. In my early day as a journalist when I was covering the chipko (hug the trees) movement I remember how there used to be a strong movement even against the proposed felling of a hundred trees and now when thousands of trees are felled in a single small stretch ( for example the Parwanoo-Solan stretch ) hardly anything happens.
In the rush to complete work many companies do not bother that the areas where this work is being undertaken are ecologically very sensitive in ecological terms and many-sided adverse impacts of this will follow. This also has a very adverse effect on safety. As the trees which hold together soil and boulders are felled down, the landslides which bring down rubble and big and small stones from the hillsides with great force increase, endangering anyone passing on the highway.
If adequate care is given to such safety aspects alternative ways of improving transport can emerge which can avoid excessive felling of trees. However big companies which get contracts are not keen to explore such decentralized options of working closely with local communities to avoid a lot of ecological harm.
However the risks on highways being more visible get at least some attention while what happens in nearby villages gets neglected. In Kangra region of Himachal Pradesh the irrigation sources of the farmers have been badly damaged in the course of recent highways construction work. A report in The Tribune (14 February) by Lalit Mohan says, “Kuhls in which water from local streams and rivers is canalized to fields is a common source of irrigation in Kangra district. The dependence of farmers on irrigation kuhls has increased this year as the rain in the region has been scanty. The kuhls are getting damaged as the two-lane road is being widened to four-lane roads in many parts of the district.” The local Congress MLA K.S. Pathania has alleged that irrigation in about 1000 kanal area has been adversely affected in his constituency Shahpur.
In addition this report points out that the National Highways Authority of India is not leaving passages for the people to cross over to the other side of the road and if this persists then they will have to walk for several km to cross over to the other side of the road.
In the entire Himalayan region when several hundred thousand trees are cut and more are endangered, when there is a lot of blasting and boring, there is immense ecological harm and fragile geological formations are weakened, also leading to landslides which can defeat the original objective of facilitating and speeding traffic. Other disasters can also be aggravated. Damage to water sources and springs, nearby houses and shops, deposition of rubble and displacement of people are other problems. There are innumerable complaints of displaced people regarding lack of proper compensation (sometimes lack of any compensation, as in the case of those who lack ownership papers).
Careless construction adds to these problems. A report in Bhaskar newspaper on Urla-Nausha road in Himachal Pradesh stated that a few years back due to neglect of drainage aspect with the initial monsoon the road resembled a nullah and a lot of water was diverted towards agricultural fields nearby, damaging crops. Villagers quoted in this report alleged that the entire work procedures are aimed at making more money and even after a lot of budget has been spent the condition does not seem to improve.
Suresh Bhai, a social activist based in Uttarkashi district ( Uttarakhand) who has been pointing out the hazards of careless highway widening says, “ Our on-the-site investigations revealed that one big tree is cut several nearby smaller trees are also damaged in the process. Cutting of trees causes landslides at new places and this in turn leads of loss of more trees.”
He along with senior Gandhian Radha Behan and other activists prepared a detailed report a few years back which showed the havoc that has been caused to the forests and trees of such eco-sensitive zones as the Gangotri region, where the Ganga river ( known here as the Bhagirathi ) originates. In addition this report depicted numerous ways in which indiscriminate construction activity is likely to cause disasters similar to the floods which devastated Uttarakhand in 2013. The report also shows how many villagers, farmers and small-market shopkeepers feel threatened as their homes and places of livelihoods face increasing risks of landslides and floods as a result of the fragile, geologically young hills being disturbed by the use of heavy machinery and blasting in the course of the highway construction work. Enormous amount of debris and rubble have been poured into rivers and this is a prescription for disasters as this can unleash and aggravate floods in the rainy season.
In fact if instead of driving straight on in highways, one ventures into nearby villages and habitations one gets a very different view of the ‘development’ by highways and their widening. I tried to do this a few years back on the Parwanoo-Solan ongoing widening stretch of Shimla-Kalka highway. Mangoti Nande Ka Thara used to be a beautiful, picturesque roadside village on this highway but when I visited this village it had been turned into a badly threatened village where farms had been devastated and cracks had started appearing in the hills. Two cowsheds had also collapsed. The villagers remained awake on rainy nights fearing disaster.
Further on the road, on the journey towards Solan, I came across similar threatening conditions in other roadside habitations –in Sanwara village, in Hardinge colony near Dharampur and also in some places near Kumarhatti.
Clearly there is much need for improvement in which highway and related construction and widening are being speeded up in the Himalayan region and several flaws need to be corrected. These flaws include—road widening to a wider extent than desirable, use of improper methods for hill-cutting, hurry to award big contracts without taking independent and unbiased expert opinion ( particularly on geological, ecological and social impacts ) , inviting only those experts whose views are supportive towards contracts, avoiding proper environmental and social appraisal, sub-dividing projects into smaller portions to avoid mandatory appraisals and public hearings, excluding local communities from decision-making and monitoring processes, adopting top-heavy, arbitrary and centralized approach.
Local people often say that if facilitating traffic is the objective, this can be achieved at much lower economic and ecological costs. Unfortunately what one sees in reality is often an excess of ecological and social costs instead of striving to minimize them. Several roads are becoming more risky with billboards warning about the risk of falling stones in destabilized hills.
A review of all the highway construction and widening projects in the Himalayan region should be taken up so that adequate precautions to minimize social and environmental costs can be taken and mistakes which have proved so costly in the past in some of these projects are not repeated elsewhere.
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The writer is Honorary Convener, Save the Earth Now Campaign. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children, Man over Machine, and A Day in 2071
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