NHAI turns a blind eye to repairing of Umsning road
SHILLONG: The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) seems to be least bothered about the repairing of the existing Umsning Road even though it had earlier during the conceptualisation of the project assured that they would look after the existing Umsning road as well as the Umsning Bypass.
Though the NGOs and residents of the existing Umsning road have been demanding to repair the existing road, the NHAI has turned a deaf ear to the requests.
And only when the road conditions worsens, it asks the concessionaire to go for patch repairing of the road.
Sources informed that the condition of the existing road has gone from bad to worst and it cannot even sustain patch repairs whereas NHAI is trying to save few crores of rupees by not repairing the road.
Though the demand for full repairing of the road has been there for long, the proposal in this regard to the NHAI headquarters was sent in May last year when PM Modi visited Shillong and the attempt was just to save the skin. Though its 7-8 months since the proposal was sent, it is still lying at the headquarters whereas the road condition is deteriorating day by day.
The full repairing of the existing Umsning road is to be taken up at a budget of Rs 3.5 cr and there are fears that tragic road accidents may take place.
When contacted, officials from NHAI said that they are busy and they can speak on the matter next week. Meanwhile, the construction work along the Umsning Bye pass is going on smoothly and 30 per cent of the work has been completed. Currently , the work for sub base and base is going on and the project will be finished by June this year, adding there are no land acquisition hurdles.
