The lifeline to Kashmir valley, the Jammu Srinagar NationalHighway, has remained blocked for traffic for a large part of this year. Evenwhen it is intermittently opened to traffic it is invariably open to only oneway traffic. The local media and the various trader associations have beenregularly highlighting this issue since it is very adversely impacting thealready tattered economy of the state, particularly the Kashmir province.Scores of meetings have been held by different government agencies at variouslevels to review the situation but there has been no improvement on ground.Recently the Chaiman of National Highway Authority of India also visited theValley, to take stock of the situation.
Other than providing assurances that the issues will getresolved none of these meetings have come up with any concrete action plan.Interestingly, a press release after one of these high level meeting seemed tosuggest it to be an issue caused by wrong parking of vehicles and by debrisbeing stacked along the highway. For now the problem seems to have been abatedbut it will crop up again once the rainy season starts.
We are all aware that prior to the start of its widening thehighway was generally stable. We have had days when it would get blocked forvarious reasons, including landslides, but these blockages were occasional andcleared fairly quickly.
While the widening of the major length of the highway hasgenerally not been an issue, the length between Ramban (Digdol) to Banihal hascaused serious disruptions to traffic because of the frequent landslides alongthis stretch of the highway. It seems that the design for widening of thisparticular stretch of the highway has not been properly conceived. Clearly thegeological formation in this stretch of the highway is different to rest of thehighway and required a more detailed geotechnical survey investigation andstudy before it was designed.
A hill road anywhere poses severe challenges first to thedesign engineer and then to the construction engineer. Amongst others, thesechallenges are related to the grade, sight distances, drainage and to stabilityof the road including the stability of the slopes on either side. And thesechallenges get exacerbated when you are widening a highway in a geologicallyunstable area of a young mountain range like the Himalayas and at the same timeare trying to keep the highway open to traffic.
Stability of hill slopes is an important function of thegeology of the area and plays crucial part in planning and design of hillroads. It is of paramount importance to ensure stability of the formation andto prevent any slides from the hill side. Where required, these slopes need tobe specially treated to ensure their stability.
The stretch of the highway under discussion is very unstableand consists of loose and fragmented formations. Cutting into such a hill sideto widen the road has disturbed the slopes, made them steeper and/or longer,thereby destabilizing the hillside and hence the slides. And vibrations causedby blasting and frequent rains in the area has only worsened the situation.
In such situation there are different types of solutions andtreatments available to prevent slides. One of them is to extend the excavationto upper reaches of the hillside to obtain a milder slope there and thenundertake treatment of the slope. And in this instance this is where we seem tohave a problem – the upper slopes have neither been made milder nor treated norstabilised.
The contractor appointed for the widening of the highway hasbeen given a certain width / corridor (called Right of Way – RoW) to widen andconstruct the road and to treat the hillside slopes within this corridor. Theloose geological formation of the slopes obtaining at the site requires thecontractor to go well beyond and above this corridor demarcation for excavation(to make the slopes milder) and for treatment to stabilize these slopes. Itseems he is not doing so as the area falls outside the RoW, the boundary limitsof his contract, hence out of his scope of work and thus he will not be paidfor it.
In absence of this additional excavation and treatment ofthe slopes above the RoW line, the loose material there slips and causes slideswhich block the highway. The executing agency needs to look into this issue andissue necessary instructions as otherwise if they continue the way they arecurrently going, i.e. clearing the slides as they occur, it will be decadesbefore the slopes are mild enough to stabilize on their own.
People who frequented the highway in the 70’s and 80’s mightrecall that we had a similar situation at the Nashri slide near Batote. Thisfamous slide continued to be a travelers’ nightmare for decades. Slopestabilization measures were not common then and instead millions of cubicmetres of slides were removed over decades till virtually the hill slopeflattened out. But given that today daily thousands of vehicles use the highwaywe cannot wait for decades for these slopes to be mild enough to stabilize,like Nashri slide.
As regard slope treatment, since improper drainage alsoinduces slides, the slopes need to be treated by way of shotcreting to preventwater ingress and drain pipes installed to drain out water from within thehillside. The rock mass on the hill side will need stitching; installation ofbolts and anchors into the hill side to stitch together the fragmented rockmass. And wherever appropriate some stretches might require grouting toconsolidate whatever rock mass there is.
The implementing agency needs to move quickly on this to getthe necessary works executed since Kashmir province cannot afford for long thiskind of disruption to the traffic on the highway. It is daily costing thebusiness in Kashmir, and hence the people, crores of rupees which is much morethan what it would take the agency to provide a proper engineered solution tothe problem.