E-Paper
Badrinath highway continues to cave in
Millions of pilgrims visit the Char Dham Hindu shrines in the high Himalayas, of which Badrinath is one, during the annual pilgrimage season from May to September
The caving in of land below a damaged stretch of the highway to the Hindu shrine of Badrinath continued in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district, officials said, which in effect meant the stretch of road too has kept sinking, the latest in a series of caving in and subsidence that have been reported from the Garhwal Himalayas this year.
The land below the 100m stretch between Pursari and Maithana is further caving in despite efforts of the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL) to mitigate the problem by filling up the sunken stretches on the road with soil using earthmoving machines to level the road for continuing movement of traffic.
The situation has worsened further as the land below the affected 100m stretch is caving in towards the Alaknanda river below due to erosion at the base of the slope by the fast flow in the river, according to residents of Palethi village near Maithana. If this continues, it could further damage the road, causing inconvenience to locals and pilgrims alike, they said.
Millions of pilgrims visit the Char Dham Hindu shrines in the high Himalayas, of which Badrinath is one, during the annual pilgrimage season from May to September. There have been several disruptions to the pilgrimage this year due to landslides and cave in on the widened sections of the Char Dham highway that experts have attributed to ill- planned construction that has destabilised slopes and hastened soil erosion.
“The work of filling the sunken stretches that developed due to caving in of the 100m stretch of road, which began over one month ago, is being carried out currently by NHIDCL workers, but due to continuous vehicular movement on the highway, sinking of the land is continuing unabated,” said Narendra Rawat, village chief of Palethi. “Until permanent treatment is done from the base of the river, it could result in the whole land around the affected area caving in further.”
“Due to the surge in the flow of the Alaknanda river, soil erosion from the base below the damaged highway has accelerated and is cutting the land further, which is resulting in the decrease in the width of Alaknanda river and more force in its flow, which is also cutting into the base of the slope,” said Dhan Singh Gariya, a teacher at Maithana Inter College.
The same area has a history of sinking of land. It was treated four years ago by constructing a retaining wall below the road, but due to a surge in the water levels of the Alaknanda, the retaining wall has weakened, causing the sinking of the stretch of road near Maithana, NHDICL officials said.
“Our designers and contractors have visited the site and are making a blueprint for the permanent treatment of the area right from the base of the Alaknanda river. Meanwhile, the stretches that had sunk are being filled with soil to level the road for smooth vehicular movement temporarily,” said Prem Chand, deputy general manager of NHIDCL. “We are hopeful that the treatment work will begin as soon as the rain activity declines in the district.”
Eco-friendly slope stabilization interventions should be done on the all-weather Char Dham road construction project to mitigate soil erosion and land sinking, which would also lessen landslides in the region, an agroforestry expert said.
“Grasses belonging to Gramineae poaceous family such as khus khus (Vetiver spp.), Doob (Cynodon spp.), lemon grass and other perennial grasses with shrubs, namely berberis and bamboo are most effective in gripping the soil, resulting in slope stabilization,” said Tejpal Singh Bisht, senior horticulture scientist at Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University in Srinagar. “It will also be an ecologically beneficial and cost-effective exercise.”
