Road expansion along Nilgiris highways ruining local ecology, increasing risk of landslips: activists

CEAN calls on TN govt to follow environmental norms for road expansion in Nilgiris to prevent landslips & accidents.

The Confederation of Environment Associations of Nilgiris (CEAN) has written to the Principal Secretary of the Tamil Nadu government, Highways and Minor Ports Department, stating that ill-planned and ill thought-out road expansion work along the Ooty to Coonoor and Kotagiri to Mettupalayam Roads, has led to landslips along these stretches during spells of heavy rains in the district.

“During this year’s monsoons, hundreds of landslips have occurred in areas where the Highways Department has carried out work on road expansion without following environmental norms,” said retired IAS officer, Surjit K. Chaudhary, chairperson and co-ordinator of CEAN.

Mr. Chaudhary pointed out that road cutting for access is also being carried out with no “settled” procedure or guidelines for this. He said that road cutting was being done in some cases with the permission of the Collector and in some cases, without. None of the standard technical guidelines for road cutting are being followed by the State or National Highways officials, he alleged.

Mr. Chaudhary said that such violations were leading to more accidents along the highways, and were also damaging the hills and impacting the ecology of the Nilgiris. He called for the uniform application of rules for road construction to be carried out with the approval of the Collector.

Among other recommendations, he called for a minimum road width of ten feet, no uprooting of plantations and forest trees to lay private roads, and no blasting of rocks and boulders. He also called for clear plans delineating design, width, elevation, gradient and direction to accompany each application, along with proper drainage and culverts.

Mr. Chaudhary also alleged that the Highways Departments are placing pressure on the hill slopes by constructing revetments on unstable soil. He said the road expansion work was being undertaken without any Environment Impact Assessments (EIA) being undertaken. He called on the Highways Department to follow standards set by the Geological Survey of India, which has specified that no soil or rock cutting should take place on gradients of more than 20 percent. He also said that the Highways Department is widening roads as per standards applied to roads being built on flatter areas, making them extremely dangerous for hill roads and for traffic using these roads.