The Char Dham Yatra to Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath is an important annual fixture and the 900 Km National Highway’s (NH’s) stretch connecting Rishikesh to these destinations are busy during the season. The fact that these National Highway’s are utilized to sub-optimal levels due to permanent bottlenecks has been ignored for long. The resulting loss in revenue and the negative effect on development in the area it appears has been accepted as a fait-accompli. This could be corrected before the next Yatra if there is a will.
1Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year had laid the foundation stone of 900 km long Char Dham highway development project an ambitious plans to upgrade the route and make it better, which will happen with time. But in the meanwhile the existing roads are being utilized with restricted capacity, because of bridges that are below National Highway specifications. A recent visit by a team from Intercontinental Consultants and Technocrats ( ICT ) an Infrastructure constancy company found that on Char Dham double lane highway route there are 32 such bridges that are Single Lane and allow restricted loading from 10 Tons to 16.5 Tons only against 70 tonnes as per highway norms.
These single lane 32 bridges include 13 bridges on NH 134 Dharasu – Yamnotri route, Five bridges on NH 34 Dharasu – Gangotri route, Eight bridges on NH 107 Rudrapryag –Gaurikund highway route and Six bridges on NH 7 Rishikesh –Badrinath highway route .
The effect of this on traffic is multi-fold. First a single lane bridge on a two lane road is a bottle-neck that causes bunching of traffic and requires vehicles to wait at each bridge for their turn to cross. When there is more traffic, these bridges need to be manned to regulate traffic from both sides. Five bridges were manned during this visit by the team, meaning 10 persons were deployed. With three shifts through the day it would add to deploying 30 men each day, an avoidable waste of resource. The bunching of traffic also results in speeding after halting at the bottle-neck, creating a concertina effect in traffic movement which is not desirable from a safety angle. Most important, the time to travel easily goes up by almost 25% with a proportionate increase in fuel consumption and an increased carbon foot print.
What is even more disabling is the load restriction of 10 to 16.5 Tons. The load that can be carried on a route is dictated by the weakest link and so a NH that should take 70 R (Tonnes) loading as per Indian road Congress (IRC) norms , which is designed for single loads of up to 100 Tons is hugely restricted. So trucks have to be smaller. Transportation cost is therefore sub optimal. Heavy construction equipment or machinery cannot reach the under developed areas. Construction work and development is directly affected by it. Some of the NHs link up with border posts too. Operationally these bottle-necks would be critical.
Why and how has this happened? The reasons are not hard to perceive. Most of these roads have been upgraded to double lane from single lane and upgrading bridges has not kept pace. In most cases the site at which the bridge is constructed is the only one available. Alternate sites in the mountains are not an easy proposition. They involve detours and rock cutting, and bridging longer gaps. The other reason is the effect of floods and land-slides. Two lane bridges have been washed away in the past, creating an emergency and the only alternative then was to launch a Bailey Bridge; a half solution at best, as these allow only single lane traffic and only one vehicle at a time with restricted loading far below the desired 70 R (tonnes) . Mostly they are limited to 18-24 Tons. One Bailey Bridge on the Rudraprayag bypass can take only 12 Tons. An alternative to it is under construction for a number of years. Even that would be single lane if and when completed. Even with the two bridges launched, the NH will not comply to 70 R specifications.
The highway therefore is being used to well below the planned capacity because of these bridges. Some of the bridges are more critical to ease traffic than others. Should this wait till the planned upgrade of the Char Dham Routes OR can the more critical be addressed before the Yatra season next year to improve traffic movement and commercial activity? In my opinion it is definitely a YES. There is an available option of using Emergency Bridges to replace the critical bridges in a short time frame. These bridges can be launched to replace existing Bailey Bridges at the same site with minimal disruption to traffic. Preparatory work for this can also be done without disruption to traffic.
The solution therefore is not to wait for the entire road to be upgraded which may take a few years. In the interim the more critical bridges could be identified and replaced by Quick Launch Bridges with the desired specifications. It would involve preparatory work on the abutments where required and then launch of the bridge with disruption of traffic for at best a month, which can be in the lean season.
With the launch of the first New Generation Emergency Bridge at Sonprayag, Uttarakhand in March 2016, before the previous Yatra season, there is a precedence and expertise in launching these to give an immediate boost to commercial activity. These are for 70 R loading, double lane and have a life of 70 years as for a permanent bridge. They can still be de-launched and shifted should the road be upgraded and the bridge required elsewhere. This is another major advantage. The benefits would more than make up for the marginally higher cost of these bridges.
Also concurrently one should equip the state to respond more efficiently during disasters by launching two lane bridges where required in an emergency, to avoid being stuck with more Bailey Bridges being launched in emergencies which then become bottle-necks and difficult to replace. There is a strong case to stock minimum sets of these urgently and use them simultaneously for upgrading some of the more critical bottle necks along the Char Dham Route.
In fact similar under-utilization of NHs is visible along all the Border States and needs to be looked at critically, to speed up development and improve commercial activity in these states.
Author Mr K K Kapila, Chairman International Road Federation (IRF), A Geneva based global body working for better and safer roads world wide
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