Champawat-Tanakpur highway opened after nine days
Champawat-Tanakpur highway opened after nine days
B.D.Kasniyal
Pithoragarh, Sept 8
The life line of Kumoan region- the Champawat to Tanakpur Highway opened after nine days. The Champawat district administration today envisaged a new traffic plan for vehicle running between Champawat and Tanakpur, after the road at Swala danger zone landslide opened after remaining closed for nine days.
Besides, the Champawat – Tanakpur road, two main roads of the district, Dharchula to Lipulekh and Tawaghat to Darma roads also opened today after the concerned road construction and maintaining agencies removed the debris from these roads. “Some 26 villages roads are closed even today. Our agencies are working to remove debris from these roads speedily,” said B.S. Mahar, District Disaster Management Officer (DDMO), Pithoragarh.
The people’s organisation of Champawat district have demanded a suspension or Bailey bridge at Swala, keeping the increased frequency of land slide at the spot. “This year the Champawat to Tanakpur Highway remained closed most of days during Monsoon, resulting into heavy loss of passengers and traders of Chanpawat and Pithoragarh districts, We have demanded that a suspension bridge be constructed at both sides of road parallel to the danger zone, for the traffic during monsoon months to maintain accessibility on this vital road link, ” said Dinesh Chandra Pandey, a social worker in Champawat.
According to police this plan has been activated temporality keeping the security of vehicle in mind.
According to Pandey, due to frequent closure of the highway, most of the food outlets on both sides of road have closed resulting into unemployment of hundreds of families.” The highway needs state of art, technology to treat the land sliding hill terrains as after the road was commissioned as NH in 2020, the number of landslide events at key spots of road have increased,” said Pandey.
“We have decided to open the road from Champawat to Tanakpur, from 9 am to 5 pm daily and the road will remain closed after 5 pm to 9 am next morning,” said Ajay Ganpati, SP, Champawat.
“Today we have cleared the traffic of small vehicles stranded from last nine days at Swala, but the transportation of small vehicles from Tanakpur way to Champawat via Swala, will not be allowed as the road is muddy and there is danger of vehicles getting stuck. The upcoming small vehicles will have to take Tanakpur- Amori Laluapati route to reach Champawat,” said the SP.
“Heavy vehicles will not be allowed to ply on the road. “The heavy vehicles will divert from Sukhidhang or Devidhura road to reach Champawat,” he added.
