Darjeeling roads’ cry for repair lead to nowhere

Darjeeling News: A smooth ride to Darjeeling from Siliguri over National Highway 55 these days is a rare occurrence and few can boast of it. Yet, the repairing of roads often goes hand in hand with the damage wrought by the movement of vehicles, heavy or otherwise. But now, the situation has turned grim with the roads remaining full of the “hellholes” and those in charge of maintenance seemingly in somnolence.

Apart from the discomfiture of the general commuters who move between the plains and the hills for commercial or other purposes, the tourists who are moving into the Hills in their thousands to savour the celestial charm of the place are having a harrowing time negotiating the zigzags crammed with death traps.

The festive season tourist inflow is picking up. The number of the Hill-bound people is mounting. Yet, the district administration seems sleeping over the public inconvenience. According to Mr Uttam Saha, a tourist from Salt Lake, the three-hour journey from Siliguri to Darjeeling seems an endless encounter with hell. “The transcendental beauty all around paled into the background as we remained bogged down in struggling against the bumpy roads,” he said.

“The road from Kurseong to Darjeeling is the worst. Strewn with potholes, it scared the hell out of us everytime our vehicle ran into one. When we reached Darjeeling we were reduced to heaps of insensitive chumps,” Mr Saha said. Recounting the same experience, Mr Sayan Saha, a 10-year-old-child, said that half the fun involved in stepping into the Himalayas for the first time was lost on the roads.

“I am too exhausted to relish the splendour of nature,” he said. When asked about the pitiable conditions of roads, a senior engineer associated with the National Highway maintenance work, Mr Nirmal Mondal said that they had not done any real repair work beyond patchwork for the past five years.

“A ministerial norm has come in the way of thorough repair work. We cannot give contract within five years after the completion of an allotted work,” he said.

“But the real repair work would begin in the first week of October. And the roads would hopefully be made smooth within a fortnight,” Mr Mondal said.