Four-laning of the entire National Highway from Lakhanpur to Uri in Kashmir and Leh in Ladakh has been a long standing and cherished project of the J&K State. The project was floated many years ago, and lots of work of four-laning the Highway has been completed. This project is regularly budgeted, and is part of national project called Pradhan Mantri Sadak Yojna. The fact of the matter is that four-laning of National Highway -A1 was undertaken during the premiership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In our State, the project has been progressing at snail’s pace and many a time the Government has been pilloried in the legislative assembly debates on slow progress of the project. Nevertheless, the importance of the project was never reduced and even after change in the Government, the project continued to progress even though slowly,
Four laning of the National Highway from Jammu to Udhampur has already been completed. The project agencies are now working on the stretch from Udhampur to Banihal. As the work is in progress, a PIL has been lodged with the National Green Tribunal (NGT) which asked the Government to stop the executing agencies from depositing the excavated soil and muck in the Tawi and Chenab Rivers as it causes damages to the ecological system and pollutes the waters of these rivers. This petition has been accepted by the NGT which has issued notices to the State Chief Secretary, and other concerned officers asking them to order stopping of depositing the debris and muck in the river bed and report to the NGT within two weeks.
This is a strange situation. The widening of the National Highway is a State and national project and the State is supposed to have fulfilled all the pre-requisites of floating a gigantic project like four laning of the road. How come that the State authorities did not take into consideration where to dump the excavated soil and muck? The river bed is not the place where the excavated soil etc. is to be dumped. The state ecological and environmental authorities know it well that dumping the soil in the river is tantamount to destruction of forests and pollution of water and Aquarian life. We believe that the contractors are well informed that the debris and muck has to be removed and dumped at specific places where there is cavity and not throw it down the sides of the road so as to cause damage to the green belt and then defile the river bed. It appears that the contractors are trying to throw dust into the eyes of the authorities or are in league with them to save them cost of transporting the excavated soil to specific destinations. Four-laning of the Highway will not be stopped because this is a prestigious project and almost half of it has been completed. No difficulty on account of dumping the soil has arisen so far. It has arisen now because from Udhampur to Banihal the road meanders along the bank of the river Chenab cutting through the mountains. This hilly stretch does not have hollow or plain land available at hand where the soil would be dumped. Therefore the contactor is supposed to find a location where the soil will be dumped. Instead of doing that, they are looking for the short cut and roll down the debris and muck by the slopes to roll down through the green belts and finally get dumped by the river bank. This is an issue in which the Forest Department and Environment Department are directly concerned besides the R&B Department.
The State Government should immediately examine the problem and issue instructions to the concerned executing agencies to ensure that debris and much are not dumped in the forest slopes or the river bed but are given proper treatment that do not contravene the rules and laws. The Chief Secretary has to ensure that the item of proper disposal of the debris/muck excavated after four laning of the National Highway is deposited at a proper destination and is not made a source of spoliation of the environment or cause damage to water bodies.
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