Dehra-Jawali highway turns into a pool

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, March 11

The photograph shown is not of a pond. It is the Dehra-Jawali state highway number 22 after a little rain this morning.

The people of Dehra are out on streets against the poor condition of roads in their area. Taxi union of Dehra, local businessmen, Guler Yuva Club and political parties have already held protests against poor condition of roads in the entire sub division.

Sukrit Sharma, president of local unit of AAP party, while talking to The Tribune, said till date 58 people have lost their lives in accidents on the Guler-Haripur and the Dehra-Jawali roads. The condition of the Dehra-Jawali state highway was so poor that people dread to take out their vehicles on the road. It is difficult and unsafe for the inhabitants living in the villages located along the road to take patients to hospitals at night.

Sukrit Sharma said the present Congress government was ignoring the Dehra Assembly as it was represented by the BJP MLA, Ravinder Ravi.

Raghav Guleria, a local resident, said the state had been talking a lot about promoting tourism with loans taken from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) along the Pong Dam Lake. However, if the condition of the roads in the area remains the same no tourist would dare to venture here.

Raghav had developed a resort on his ancestral land in Nandpur village. “I had developed the resort to preserve the heritage of former Guler state of Kangra. However, the PWD has been constructing the road from Guler to Nandpur for the past three years. The incomplete road makes it difficult for even heavy vehicles to ply on it. Instead of investing on promoting tourism, the government should just provide infrastructure and the tourism would develop automatically”, he said.

Executive Engineer PWD, Dehra, Harsh Puri, said this year the department had not received any money for re-carpeting the Dehra-Jawali road. “We have received money for laying patches on the road for which the tenders have been floated”, he said.

Regarding the Guler-Haripur road, the Executive Engineer said the money had been received for laying bitumen over the road and work would be started soon. He also said the contractor, who has been awarded work on the Guler-Haripur road, has been asked to expedite the work.

About the reasons for delay, the Executive Engineer said there were some issues with the railways which delayed the work.

He also said the proposal was being mooted to include the Dehra-Jawali road in World Bank project.

The sources in the PWD, however, said the department had been receiving money for repair of the Dehra-Jawalamukhi road but the funds were diverted as the constituency in which the road falls is represented by the BJP.

However, the real sufferers in this political fight are the people of Dehra who are being pushed into Stone Age era due to lack of roads.