Traffic debacle a wake-up call?

Ambika Sharma

Managing traffic on the Parwanoo-Shimla stretch of the National Highway (NH) 5 has become a Herculean task for the authorities, especially with the four-laning work, restricting the road width and little mass transit medium being available to alleviate the problem. 

With the growth of the state’s economy dipping from 8.1 per cent in 2015-16 to 7 per cent in 2016-17 and 6.5 per cent in 2017-18, the state cannot afford to face a decline in its tourism inflow, which is a major revenue spinner. 

Incessant traffic jams on the Kalka-Shimla NH, which is the gateway to the state, has taken a toll on tourism in the last financial year. A steep decline of 16.08 per cent has been suffered in this sector in 2018, which is a blow to the state’s economy. Being a major propeller of the state’s economic growth, tourism alone has the potential to generate sizeable employment for the state’s large unemployed youth. This necessitates the need to address the problems of traffic mismanagement, especially so as the state government proposes to achieve a growth rate of 7.3 per cent in the current fiscal.

The problem has assumed an alarming proportion, especially during the weekends and in the summer season, when the tourist influx registers a major increase from Parwanoo, which is the gateway of the state. As if this was not enough, a recent move to abruptly close the highway for 13 hours for the vehicular traffic to facilitate the removal of precariously hanging boulders at Sanwara, added to the dilemma of motorists with all roads becoming choked with vehicles. 

Gurpreet Singh, general manager, Kasauli Resorts, while lamenting the inordinate delay in executing the four-laning work of the Parwanoo-Solan section, said the under-construction work leading to frequent traffic bottlenecks was adversely hitting the business, which had taken a dip of  35 per cent in the last three years. He said tourists who frequented Kasauli generally came from Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh, but given the traffic chaos they had been desisting from undertaking the weekend trips now. This was also leading to loss of taxes for the state government apart from leading to frequent cancellations. He said 10 rooms were cancelled at the last moment last Sunday, due to the sudden closure of the highway for 13 hours. Such instances can be avoided with better coordination and planning.

Not only were several aspirants of the Himachal Administrative Services preliminary examination unable to reach Solan from the Tricity on time, but an attempt to divert traffic from the ill-maintained arterial roads proved insufficient to handle the voluminous traffic. An aspirant Deepak Verma, who started at 6 am from Parwanoo, took more than 5 hours to reach Solan and ended up missing his exam like many others.

Solan SP Madhusudan Sharma said they were regularly reviewing the volume of traffic to deploy staff accordingly and mobile patrolling on bikes was also being undertaken. He, however, added that the problem aggravates when motorists, stuck in traffic, abandon their lane to surge ahead and the cascading effect of such misadventures impairs the smooth flow of traffic for hours. 

The expansion work of this 89-km Parwanoo-Shimla highway, which was being undertaken in phases, has exposed the lack of preparedness of the state government as simultaneous planning for diversion of traffic failed to be undertaken. 

The 39-km stretch of Parwanoo-Solan was sanctioned under the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) phase II, to upgrade, rehabilitate and widen the highway to a higher standard with a budget outlay of Rs 748 crore. Though assigned for a 30-month period, whose deadline expired in March 2018, private company GR Infraprojects, executing the project, has sought an extension till March 2020.

The four-lanning of the subsequent 22.91-km stretch of the highway from Solan-Kaithlighat would be undertaken at a cost of Rs 598 crore, which was 25.10 per cent higher than the initial estimate of Rs 478.74 crore on the engineering procurement and construction mode. The work which began in December 2018 is supposed to be completed within 910 days, while the work was yet to be allotted for the final 28-km stretch from Kaithlighat to Shimla. This 90-km project is slated to cut down the travelling time, though one wonders how many more years will be lost in executing the entire project successfully.

Being the first major road-expansion project on this highway fraught with fragile rocks, its expansion has taken more time than the anticipated 30-month period. This has increased the peril of the district administration, which has little option to divert traffic when work has to be undertaken on a continuous basis.

Contemplating problems in traffic management, the officials of the Public Works Department (PWD) did plan strengthening of its three arterial roads in a bid to provide smooth passage to vehicular traffic, while the four-laning work would peak, but poor field surveillance delayed it beyond its designated period of one year. 

With limited scope to merely strengthen and not considerably widen these arterial roads, the PWD erred in devising a comprehensive detailed project report for the arterial roads of the Kasauli area, which is the first casualty of highway traffic. Apart from maintaining the surface, there was limited scope to enhance the road width which would have considerably helped in diverting traffic effectively, while four-laning of the NH was underway.

Funds worth Rs 24 crore were provided by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for strengthening the three arterial roads — 29.4-km Parwanoo-Jangeshu-Kasauli-Dharampur road; 13-km Kamli-Bhojnagar road; and 14-km Chakki-Bhojnagar road — which would have helped decongest the Parwanoo-Solan section of the NH-05. 

The work which began in January 2017 was supposed to be completed within a year, but despite lapse of nearly two-and-a-half years, it was nowhere near completion. What was appalling was the fact that JP Structures, the private contractor, which was assigned the contract has failed to execute quality work so much so that three recommendations were made to cancel his project to the senior officials by the field staff.

No funds to strengthen, maintain arterial roads

Given the inept handling of this project, the NHAI has refused to grant more funds for the subsequent stretch of the NH-05 for strengthening other arterial roads from Solan to Kandaghat. This was direly required to facilitate the diversion of traffic from Chambaghat in Solan to Kandaghat, a distance of about 12 km, as its four-laning was underway.

Expressing concern at the lack of fund availability, Kulvir Thakur, Executive Engineer, NH wing of the state PWD, said: “The NHAI has refused to provide about Rs 15 crore to strengthen the Chambaghat-Basal-Kandaghat road as well as the Kandaghat-Sadhupul Road following inept handling of the three arterial roads in Kasauli area. These roads, which are essentially rural and single-laned, would have helped in diverting traffic once the work on Solan-Kaithlighat section of the NH reaches an advance stage and uninterrupted work would be required to be executed on it.”

He said it was unfair to deny funds for strengthening and maintaining these roads, as the NHAI could have imposed some stringent riders to undertake the work. Since a few alternatives were available in the absence of these roads, traffic diversion will pose problems in the near future especially at Kandaghat.

Despite a Herculean problem of traffic diversion for the subsequent stretch of Solan to Kaithlighat knocking the door as work to four-lane this section had begun in December 2018, the authorities had few traffic plans. Options like seeking funds from the state government for strengthening the arterial roads were yet to be explored.

A cursory scrutiny of various road construction projects in the area reveals that none have been completed in time with even the quality failing to meet expected levels. The work to complete a 5.14-km Solan Bypass, which would have helped divert a section of the traffic from NH-05 towards Solan from Shamlech village, was yet to see the light of day even after a whopping 29 months. This Rs 26 crore project is likely to be completed by the year end now, as per the new deadline. With Rs 11.98 crore having been spent on initial land acquisition and Rs 5 crore on its subsequent acquisition, more than two years were lost on land acquisition alone.

With virtually nil accountability of the field-level officials in ensuring quality and timely completion of work, the laxity of the contractor has failed to be rectified in time. What was even more surprising was the fact that the state government failed to monitor the four-laning of the Parwanoo-Solan section, which could not be completed within its stipulated 30-month and had stretched for over 44 months.

“The recommendations of the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Department as well as the National Green Tribunal (NGT) have also failed to strike sense in the authorities all these years to plan the expansion of arterial roads. Had some serious steps been taken to put in place quality bypass roads, the traffic chaos would have been effectively offset,” observes Suresh Kumar, an environmentalist.

The successive developmental plans chalked out for the Kasauli Planning Area (KPA), which is a major casualty of the highway traffic, by the TCP Department, have emphasised the need to strengthen the roads. Even NGT directed the state government to undertake this task in the KPA, which was directly affected with the Parwanoo-Dharampur four-laning work.

A study on the carrying capacity conducted by an expert member committee constituted by the NGT in the recent past stressed that since the Development Plan 2009 devised for the Kasauli Planning Area states that the approach roads are not wide enough, given the high volume of traffic plying on it, their carrying capacity needs to be increased. Wherever feasible, the roads need to be widened to achieve the desired right of way. Apart from dwelling on the need for constructing bypass at Garkhal and improving Garkhal Junction, where five roads converge, Kimughat Chowk and the chowk near PWD office has been emphasised vehemently. Further issues such as construction of parking lots and transport area have all remained merely on paper with not even a preliminary survey having been undertaken to address these key recommendations.

The challenges 

The ensuing apple season will pose a major challenge for the district administration, as the highway will be flooded with hundreds of apple-laden trucks all along its stretch. Even rains will add to the peril of commuters, as the excavated hills of the NH-5 have the tendency of eroding recklessly at a plethora of vulnerable spots. This has at times led to casualties, where the vehicles plying on the highway have been hit by big boulders. The district administration did initiate to address the issue of traffic bottlenecks, but apart from preliminary planning, nothing much has been done so far. Solan Deputy Commissioner Vinod Kumar said: “Options like constructing a ropeway on the NH-5 with ample parking space can be explored, where tourists can be taken to Kasauli and this will help ease some traffic on the highway. Funding can be arranged from Central projects as well as the state government and this will be an eco-friendly option with minimal impact on the environment.”