Amid extreme weather events, Uttarakhand needs to rethink its highways.
In the current monsoon season, Uttarakhand has received more than 1,340 mm of rain, an excess of about 22 per cent. The state has been hit by cloud bursts, flash floods and landslides. The latest extreme weather incident in the state triggered landslides on Tuesday, sweeping away at least 13 people in Dehradun district. More than 100 people are reportedly trapped in Dehradun city. While there is little doubt that climate change has made the weather erratic, there is also a consensus among experts that ecosensitive planning could have made the country’s high-altitude regions less vulnerable to the fury of rains. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways’ (MoRTH) decision to re-examine the safety of certain stretches of the under-construction Uttarkashi-Gangotri road – a part of the Char Dham Highway project – has, therefore, come not a day too soon.
The geology of the Himalayan region, the subterranean stress on rocks, makes it prone to instability. Cutting into mountainsides to create wide roads adds to the precarity of the slopes. As a study in the journal Natural Hazard and Earth System Sciences pointed out last year, rock blasting required during the road widening process can fracture rock masses, creating potential landslide-prone zones along the road corridors. In a letter to the MoRTH, after the flash floods in Dharali in August, two experts flagged similar concerns. The experts – part of the Supreme Court-appointed High-Powered Committee that examined the environmental concerns about the Char Dham project – said that the widening of the valley sides had created new landslide zones. The scientists – one of whom continues to be part of the Char Dham panel, while the other has resigned – referred to a project report they had submitted in 2023, which suggested measures to minimise tree felling. Their suggestions are significant. Trees arrest avalanches and their roots have a stabilising influence on slopes. The loss of natural stabilisers increases the surface runoff during heavy rainfall or snowmelt, saturating soil and increasing the region’s susceptibility to landslides. However, the caveats suggested by the scientists were ignored.
In their zeal to expand tourism in the state, the Centre and the Uttarakhand government appear to have shown inadequate sensitivity to the idiosyncrasies of the mountains and repeatedly ignored the red flags raised by experts. The Himalayan region needs scrupulous attention to environmental due processes and the institution of better disaster warning systems. The MoRTH review should be the beginning of a long-overdue course correction.