Cave-in incidents hamper traffic flow on Paonta Sahib-Shillai national highway

Tribune News Service

Ambika Sharma

Solan,October 26

Commuters travelling on the Paonta Sahib-Shillai National Highway (NH)-707 often face hardships as the two-km stretch of the road near Kachi Dhang regularly caves in. The traffic on the road has to be often put on hold due the cave-in incidents, forcing the locals to take longer detours to reach their destination.

Work to widen of the NH-707 began in 2021 and this site is located merely 13 km from Paonta Sahib. A geo technical study was undertaken by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee some months ago to suggest suitable strategies to stablise the strata.

Vivek Panchal, Project Director, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, said, “As per a study conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, the strata is volatile and it flows down.” The stretch near Kachi Dhang overlooks the Giri. Huge chunks of debris flows down from the hill as well as from the valley side into the river every time the stretch caves in. Despite the vulnerability, the site was used for dumping tonnes of debris, which was excavated during the widening project of the NH.

Panchal said, “A study to devise suitable engineering strategies is being undertaken by the contractor who is executing the widening project. Following its findings further work will be carried out.’’

Since this work did not fall in the existing scope of the project, fresh approval will be required to undertake the work to stabilise the strata near Kachi Dhang. This would enhance the project cost.

Vivek Mahajan, SDM, Paonta Sahib, said two options had been suggested by technical studies undertaken over this stretch. “A bridge can be constructed over the affected portion or the existing strata can be strengthened by using suitable engineering technologies,”’ he said.

Though a detailed project report is prepared when a road widening project is to be carried out but it is surprising that no specific engineering measures were devised to contain cave-in incidents on this stretch. This area has been sliding since the last several years.

Chief Minister had stated before the Vidhan Sabha in September 2020 that a valley bridge would be constructed to tackle the problem of repeated landslides at the site. Despite lapse of two years no concrete step has been taken to repair it.

The Central Government had placed the 104-km Paonta-Shillai-Hatkoti road widening project under the World Bank Green National Highways Corridor scheme. Its work is being executed in several phases.

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