Kangra DC seeks report on sinking McLeodganj roads within 10 days

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, January 15

Kangra Deputy Commissioner Nipun Jindal has sought a report from the Commissioner of the Dharamsala Municipal Corporation and the Town and Country Planning Department regarding sinking roads in McLeodganj.

He has asked the departments concerned to file the report within 10 days along with the opinion expressed by geologists regarding landslide threat in the area.

The Deputy Commissioner has sought the report in response to a news item published in these columns: “McLeodganj could be next Joshimath, warn geologists”.

After the news item was published, former CM Shanta Kumar also expressed concern and urged the state government to take action.

Sanjay Kumbkarni, a former scientist of the Geological Survey of India (GSI) who now stays in Dharamsala, said the NHAI should approach the GSI offices in Chandigarh, Lucknow and Faridabad and seek a detailed investigation and remedial measures on constructing roads in the Himalayan region.

Experts point out the area between Dharamsala and McLeodganj is seismically and neo-tectonically active. The associated sinking of roads is not going to go away.

If realigning the road altogether is not possible, intensive and focused tackling of the sinking zones could be taken up with regard to surface drainage. A trained taskforce is needed to handle this. The state government, NHAI, PWD and GSI scientists, and those from the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, should meet on a regular basis to carry out onsite assessment, systematic geological mapping on a large scale and arrive upon a scientific way of solving this problem, he said.

Sources said the district authorities had requested scientists from the Central University of Himachal Pradesh (CUHP) to survey the McLeodganj hill to ascertain the threat to the area.