Shimla: Passing through rich apple orchard lands, it is one of Himachal’s worst roads that has fruit growers and opposition BJP agitated, who are already counting their losses ahead a crop ready to be harvested later in the month.
Talking to reporters Umesh Sharma, a BJP office bearer from Jubbal & Kothkai constituency here today said, “in the 18 months that the Congress government has been in power, the Theog-Kothkhai-Jubbal-Hatkoti-Rohru has gone from bad to worse. There is a crop worth hundreds of crores ready to be harvested, but the kind of road conditions that exist, much of it will be difficult to market with suffering damage from transportation.”
Sharma said that Congress in the run up for the December 2012 assembly elections had laid claim about repairing the lifeline road to Kothkai, Jubbal and Rohru regions with months of coming to power.
Where the potholes have only gone bigger, the company which has been handed over the new contract job order has failed to carry out any repairs, said Sharma. Instead of fortifying the broken down road, the contractor company is busy constructing a retaining wall to protect orchard lands of an influential owner at Khara Pattar, he added.
Widening and improving of the road is to be carried out under loan funding provided by World Bank, but a Chinese company that was initially awarded the contract in 2008, failed to carry out the job.
The government terminated the contract order and re-tendered it. The new company award the job has failed to get started because of lack of a quarrying site needed to lay gravel and grit for road layering purposes.
An agitated Sharma also alleged that blatant encroachments were taking place at Pragatinagar Gumma, where the boundary wall of a government engineering college had been illegally broken down.
“Nobody has been booked, no case made out and heavy duty excavators and loaders were carrying out illegal mining activity in the vicinity of the engineering college,” he said.
Public property has been damaged and we demand that the government register a case, hold an inquiry and hold the culprits liable for their actions,” said Sharma.
Laying the blame at the government door for turning a blind eye towards corruption, illegal mining and encroachments taking place, the BJP leader said the opposition would not sit quiet.
“We will agitate, take to an hunger strike and demand action against those involved in violating the states laws,” said Sharma.
As Editor, Ravinder Makhaik leads a team of media professionals at Hill Post.
Spanning a career of over two decades in mass communication, as a Documentary Filmmaker, TV journalist, Print Media journalist and with Online & Social Media, he brings with him a vast experience. He lives in Shimla.
