SHILLONG: Most of the state and national highways in Meghalaya which pass through thick forests lack radium lights which act as night vision for road safety.
Be it the newly constructed road from Umiam to Shillong, busy roads in Shillong town or the road connecting Tura, radium lights does not exist anywhere in Meghalaya.
A drive on the state PWD roads will reveal that there are very few roads where radium lights have been fitted for better vision of drivers. Even the busy roads inside the city which are considered national highways do not have the lights.
A visit to Tura at night shows that radium lights have been fitted on the road for quite a long distance right from Paikan in Assam but as the town of Tura is approached, the lights disappear and only few stretches have them.
Even while driving at night on the Umiam-Shillong road, one would not see any radium lights though other road markings are in place. But the road lacks other important road safety sign boards.
A visit to Mawblei road shows that some radium lights and important road signs are put in place.
On the contrary driving on many of the highways in Assam gives a totally different picture as radium lights and other safety features are in place.
A person who was travelling to Tura via Assam at night remarked, “I feel I am driving on a runway because of the radium lights which also make the road look more beautiful apart from providing better visibility at night.”
Many feel the roads in Meghalaya need such radium lights and other facilities as they pass through thick jungles with no visibility. Another driver from Shillong said, “Recently, overlay works on the roads were done throughout Shillong and it would have been better if the department installs all the necessary road signs apart from carving mere road markings.”
The radium lights on the Guwahati-Shillong road are not working in many places and when the matter was taken up with the implementing agency, it was assured that these would be replaced shortly after the rainy season.
