Interior areas cut off, power supply hit

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, December 15

Several areas in the interiors of Himachal remained cut off for the second day today due to heavy snow and power supply remained disrupted in the parts of Kullu, Kinnaur, Chamba, Shimla and Solan districts even as restoration works continued in full swing.

The sky remained heavily overcast and strong winds swept the region. Shimla, Kalpa and some other places experienced sleet and rains. The tourists are making beeline to Kufri to enjoy snow.

Normalcy started returning to the state as major roads were thrown open to light vehicles. The Public Works Department engineers expressed the hope that traffic would be restored on most of the roads by tomorrow evening.

“Out of 841 roads blocked due to snowfall, 120 have been opened for traffic while 80 more roads would be opened by this evening. Most of the roads in the state would be opened by tomorrow evening”, said a PWD official monitoring the road-clearance operations.

The Hindustan-Tibet national was opened up to Narkanda while the road via Basantpur-Kingal was opened up to Tapri. The Kiratpur-Manali national highway has also been opened for light vehicles up to Kalath, 9 km short of Manali, while the Shimla-Rohroo road has been opened up to Jubbal by clearing snow at Khara-Patthar in Shimla district.

“All major roads in Shimla district would be opened for heavy vehicles from tomorrow and normal bus services would also be resumed”, Dinesh Malhotra, Deputy Commissioner, Shimla, said.

Kullu, Manali and some parts of tribal Kinnaur district remained without electricity as supply could not be restored there. The supply also remained erratic in Shimla, Solan and some other districts with people facing unannounced power cuts.

Water supply was affected at many places in the higher hills as water pipes froze and burst due to extreme cold conditions with mercury staying below freezing point.

The day temperatures rose marginally but remained 10 to 12 degree below normal. Kalpa recorded a high of 0.2 degree Celsius, followed by Bhuntar 4.3 degree, Shimla 5.2 degree, Sundernagar 9.3 degree, Dharamsala 11.8 degree, Nahan 15.7 degree and Una 18.4 degree C.

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today directed the authorities concerned to repair water pipe and power transmission lines and restore essential services within two days. He has also asked the irrigation, public health and public works departments besides the electricity board to submit their estimates for the funds required for restoration works.

A sum of Rs 5 crore has been released to the PWD from State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) to continue restoration works on a war footing.