BY HUGH AND COLLEEN GANTZER
The Garhwal Post alerted us to this story. In its issue of 3rd April it said “Former Municipal President OP Uniyal said that a large number of big vehicles ply every day from Gandhi Chowk to Zero Point; hence laying tiles on the road is not justified.”
We know the road well. In the 80 plus years that our family has been involved in the civic life of the town, the road was once named after the Charleville Hotel honoured as the only hotel in the Commonwealth in which British Royalty had stayed.
The Princess of Wales stayed here in March 1906. It is still the temporary residence of the equivalent of Indian Royalty, as it is now The Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. Rumour has it that the high frequency of VIP visitors prompted a senior babu to say that this road should be made more attractive. It is a wooded, shaded, northern facing road with occasionally striking views of the snow-covered peaks of the higher Himalayas. But, obviously, such natural vistas did not inspire the administrator. And so, it was decided to ‘beautify’ as much of the road as the excess funds of the Government of India could spare. Diligent research revealed the fact that part of the road fell under the control of the cash-rich National Highways Authority.
Consequently, the NHA was roped in. This path stretched for 1.4 kms. Since the rest of this road did not belong to the National Highways Authority, it could not attract additional expenditure.
The National Highways Authority approved an amount of Rs 5.65 crores to tile the 1.4 kms. long road. It will take a maximum of 45 days to lay these interlocking cement tiles. These tiles, apparently, would be of various colours so that the VIPs who use this road to go to the LBSNAA would be delighted with this short part of their pilgrimage. Presumably, this emotional high would sustain them through the rest of their untiled journey!
All of this begs many questions.
Can the brief, aesthetic joy, of driving on a colourful road justify the expenditure of Rs 5.65 crores?
Our Himalayas are young mountains, still rising and our area in particular, is an earthquake-prone zone. Have interlocking cement tiles been used anywhere else in the world in mountains similar to ours?
What was the reason for the National Highways Authority to abandon the use of the traditional asphalt in favour of the untried and untested interlocking cement tiles? We were told that asphalt surfaces are prone to pot holes. If that is so, it is only because the contractors who have been given the task of spreading asphalt on our roads have defaulted in the material and method used. The reason for them doing so are too obvious to mention.
Now we come to the most critical matter of all. According to the met. forecast the world has entered a period of extremely hot summers. This will extend over a long duration. Forest fires will increase. Water will be in short supply. It is very likely that the augmented water supply to Mussoorie will be diverted by greedy politicians to those who can pay most to them. Mussoorie’s shopping areas and those in Landour are potential tinder boxes. We have only one fire-station to serve the whole of our town. That fire-station is located on the road which will be dug-up and unserviceable for a fire tender to use. When we brought this fact to the attention of a senior official of the National Highways Authority, he seemed surprised and said: “We will look into it”. Look into it?! In other words they have not considered the terrible consequences of decommissioning a road for 45 days and exposing Mussoorie to the danger of a devastating fire in the height of a very hot summer!
In this column we have expressed our dismay at the seemingly callous and careless attitude of the National Highways Authority to our small town and its citizens. The essence of democracy is Transparency and Accountability. We need both from the National Highways Authority. Or is this to be added to our State’s civic mysteries along with the collapse of the Silkyara Bend-Barkot tunnel and the reason for the death of Ankita Bhandari?
(Hugh & Colleen Gantzer hold the National Lifetime Achievement Award for Tourism among other National and International awards. Their credits include over 52 halfhour documentaries on national TV under their joint names, 26 published books in 6 genres, and over 1,500 first[1]person articles, about every Indian state, UT and 34 other countries. Hugh was a Commander in the Indian Navy and the Judge Advocate, Southern Naval Command. Colleen is the only travel writer who was a member of the Travel Agents Association of India.) (The opinions and thoughts expressed here reflect only the authors’ views!).