NH-37 takes its toll more by design than by accidents

Khamukh bridge is a death trap. The bridge under construction is dumbbell-shaped with the two-lane highway from the airport side converging into one-lane bridge at Khamukh only to bifurcate into two lanes in the other end. As though to cap it all, the road as street lights that do not glow at night.

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, April 17: The tiol Highway 37 from Jalukbari to VIP Stop near Lokapriya Gopith Bordoloi Intertiol Airport does have street lights, but not to glow the road at night, at least when no VIP is on a visit to the State.

These street lights glow all of a sudden when a VIP happens to visit the State. Quite surprisingly, sometimes these street lights are kept glowing even during the day. Today some of the street lights on NH-37 were seen glowing during the day. What is seen at night is that these street lights are not switched on, barring a few of them at long intervals. Street lights glow near Bhupendra Somadhi Khetra at Jalukbari Point and then at Satmile, leaving the entire stretch via Gauhati University dark. The situation is no different beyond Satmile as street lights are glowing at night after long intervals. How vulnerable is the tiol highway can be gauged from a number of hoardings erected here and there on either of its side of the road reading – accident prone zone. Such precautiory warnings are meant to avoid accidents, but leaving maximum stretches of the highway dark at night is certainly not in consonce with the precautiory warnings. It seems that there has been lack of consonce between opinions and actions, and among different authorities that are at the helm of affairs of the tiol Highway and the maintence of street lights on either side of the road.   

A veritable death trap on the tiol highway is Khamukh bridge. The bridge under construction is dumbbell-shaped with the two-lane highway from the airport side converging into a one-lane bridge at Khamukh only to bifurcate into two lanes in the other end, i.e. in the side of Gauhati University. As though to cap it all, the stretch of the highway has street lights that do not glow at night. Thus more by design than by accidents unpleasant incidents relating to vehicular traffic do take place there frequently. Are the authorities ready to own the responsibility? 

The situation of the by-pass that connects Jalukbari and Satmile running along the rear side of Gauhati University is even worse. The road has no street lights in the first place!