Gorkha Janmukti Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri on Thursday wrote to Nitin Gadkari, the Union minister of road transport and highways, demanding that the upgrade of NH110, formerly NH55, be handed over to the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL).
This request by a hill leader comes within four months of the NHIDCL taking over the maintenance of 55km of the NH10 that connects Siliguri with Sikkim from the Bengal PWD (NH division). The NHIDCL is a fully owned company of the ministry of road transport and highways.
NH110, also called the Hill Cart Road, was built by the British so that bullock carts could ply from the plains to Darjeeling.
The highway has a very easy gradient compared to other hill roads in the district.
“..the old and depleted Hill Cart Road, built initially for bullock carts to ply, is bearing the immense load and pressure of thousands of vehicles running every day and every night,” Giri’s letter states.
Giri, who had recently attended a meeting called by the Centre to discuss issues of the Gorkhas, along with some other hill leaders, also said “two major military cantonments” at Jalapahar and Lebong in Darjeeling use
this road.
Darjeeling is near borders with China, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal.
Demanding the road be widened, Giri suggested “strengthening and widening of NH110 through NHIDCL is mandatory to counter the present and future traffic management, as NHIDCL has proven track records to manage roads and slopes as in this similar terrain”.
The Morcha leader suggested a new alternative route connecting Darjeeling and Siliguri via Balason and extending the NH110 connecting Lebong to Teesta
from Darjeeling.
The road from Lebong to Teesta is expected to decongest NH110 from Ghoom to Darjeeling as all alternative roads from Siliguri to Darjeeling come and merge at Ghum.
Roads from Sikkim/Kalimpong or the ones coming via Pankhabari, Rohini, Mungpo and Mirik all have to touch Ghum to reach Darjeeling.
“Our only hope lies in your effective intervention as we have realised that the state PWD is helpless and inefficient in solving the crisis that the Darjeeling hill population has to face every day,” wrote Giri.