Lko–Alld highway: An open letter to Nitin Gadkari
Dear Mr Gadkari,
Your august presence at Lucknow for inauguration of Conference on Roads on Friday is most welcome . The UP population of some 22.5 crore, about two third of that of United States of America and more than eight times of the Continent of Australia, has very many problems connected with roads, some of them very acute.
Inadequate planning and very tardy execution in last three or four years of a mere 200 kilometre stretch of national highway project connecting the state capital Lucknow and Allahabad is creating a great deal of avoidable misery. Another problem is due to erroneous policy regarding uncontrolled industrialisation.
Sudden large spurt in production of motorcars and other auto-vehicles after 1991 has not only flooded the streets and lanes of all towns in India but is almost choking all arteries of normal movement of people all over country. Acute problem of parking cars in residential premises is also becoming pernicious.
It shall be in interest of the nation that the conference also devotes serious thought upon this relevant issue.
Lucknow–Allahabad national highway is also very much afflicted by the aforesaid problem, but there are other factors as well which aggravate the suffering of the people using this road hence remedial measures are needed.
THESE ARE :
▪ First 80 km of the road of the N.H. i.e., from Lucknow to Rae Bareli is a six-lane road while the rest 120 km to Allahabad gets reduced to a four lane traffic in dense traffic area at Rae Bareli causing problems. ▪ Construction of balance 120 km road from Rae Bareli to Allahabad going on for over three years still many strategic portions remain incomplete.
▪ Half complete diversions at Munshiganj and at Kunda to avoid two railway crossings and crowd in town need completion.
▪ Rail over-bridge at Unchahar is half complete and further work stopped for over several months, causing great bottlenecks.
▪ Bridge on river Sai is only for two lane traffic. New bridge to cope up with requirement of NH needed.
▪ Highway reaching Lucknow ends some 10 km from city near Shaheed Path and 15 km before Allahabad. These long stretches of roads become bottlenecks causing serious traffic problems every day. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has also rightly desired discussions in the conference for cutting construction costs of roads, but has been wrongly advised that there can be alternatives to stones and gravel for metalling of roads. Uttar Pradesh with a large plain area is lucky enough to have in its vicinity rocky areas of Himalayas in north, Aravalli hilly terrain on west and Vindhyachal plateau on south enabling availability of abundant supplies of natural stone aggregate.
‘Kankar’ dug out from nearby Usar lands and brought by bullock carts was the greatest source for road metalling till Independence and a few years thereafter. With increase in availability of mechanical transport, stone metal and gravel have rightly taken the place of ‘Kankar’ as road metal.
Road construction materials are used in bulk and hence transportation cost is a major factor in cost analysis which can be reduced if ten-wheeler trucks are allowed to carry 25 MT which they can realistically carry instead of 15 MT as provided in archaic rules of the transport department. The overloading up to 45 to 50 MT in the past has already been effectively checked. Similarly, a more realistic approach in legal mining of abundant river sand shall help reduce construction costs considerably. I do hope that all the aforesaid shall merit your kind attention.