ER.MOHAMMAD ASHRAF FAZILI
Pre-historic period: The history of roads is as old as the history of man on earth. The pre-historic men traced out a narrow way for going out for hunting the food. The narrow way was as footpath or pathway. The pathway is considered as the first road mark laid on the surface of the earth like the Silk Route from China to Europe passing through Kashmir. The utility and necessity of pathway gradually developed with the introduction of wheeled carts. The pathway was widened into a roadway which was the beginning of road as a means of communication and transport.
History of highway development in India Indian civilization, being one of the oldest in the world (4000 to 3000 BC), witnessed the growth and development of roads along with her own development. Thus, while tracing out the history of development of roads in India, one is to study it along with the development in the political, economic and cultural life of this country.
Roads under early Indian rulers:Ancient history of India reveals that long ago; Indians knew the science of road construction. The excavations at Mohenjodaro and Harappa (Pakistan) have established that even 3500 years BC, there was a well-designed network of roads, and streets were paved at that time.
Aryan period: During the Aryan period, there are references in Rig Veda (Part 1, Para 5) about ‘Mahapaths’ as a means of communication. About 600 years B.C., a pucca road (6.1 m to 7.3 m wide) was built in Rajgir (ancient Rajagriha) of Patna district by king Bimbisara. This road was made of stones and is still in existence.
Mauryan period: During this period, roads were developed on technical basis specifications were laid down for width of roads, given to the surface of roads and the convexity of road surface was compared to the back of a tortoise.
Artha Shastra, the well-known treatise on administration, gives a good deal of information regarding roads along with specifications adopted during Mauryan period. The book of Artha Shastra was written in about 300 years B.C by Kautilya, the first prime minister of Emperor Chandragupta Maurya.
Chandragupta Maurya (322-298 B.C.) took keen interest in the maintenance and development of roads. He had a separate department of communications to look after the public roads. He got constructed the GT Road connecting North-West frontier with capital Patliputra, the modern Patna. He also got fixed some signposts in the form of pillars and milestones along the road side at regular intervals.
Emperor Ashoka took special interest in the improvement of roads and provided facilities to the travellers. Such facilities were in the form of plantation of trees, digging wells and constructing rest houses at about 4.8 to 6.4 kms distance along the roads. The famous Chinese traveller Fahien had spoken very highly of the roads of that time in the record of his travel.
Roads during the Mughal period:The roads were very greatly improved in India during the Mughal period. Chahar Gulshan, which was written in eighteenth century, gives an information regarding 24 important roads which formed the network of roads in India during the Mughal period. The road system in those days was considered as one of the best road systems in the world.
The road from Delhi to Daultabad was constructed by Mohamad Tughlag. Sher Shah Suri got constructed the longest road i.e. the road from Punjab to Bengal. The present Grand Trunk Road forms the greater part of the Old Shershahi road, also called Badshahi sarak. The road from Agra to Allahabad and that from Ujjain to Bijapur were also got constructed by Muslim Emperor. Many of roads, constructed during Mughal period exist even today.
Roads during the British rule: The economic and political shifts caused much damage in the maintenance of road transportation. Thus, with the fall of Mughal Empire, the condition of roads became deteriorated.
At the beginning of the British period, several old Mughal roads, connecting important military and business centres were metalled and some new roads were constructed by Military boards during the time of Lord William Bentinck. But the administration of roads under military boards was not a satisfactory arrangement. It was only during the administration of Lord Dalhousie that the central public works department was established to look after the construction and maintenance of roads. Later, such departments were created in other provinces also. Later, such departments were created in other provinces also. Lord Mayo and Lord Rippon contributed a lot in the development of roads because the affairs of construction and maintenance of roads came directly under the control of Local bodies.
With the development of Railways in India, the road development received a serious setback. The work of road construction and maintenance was given a secondary importance and thus the roads gradually lost the interest of the government.
Major roads, except those of military importance, mainly cantered on the feeder roads to railways. Thus, the outlook on road development was completely changed and they were only of local importance. According to Government. of India Act of 1919, the affairs of all the roads, except those of military importance and certain other roads of national importance were transferred from the central government. to the provincial governments. The provincial governments, in their turn, took over the direct responsibility of construction and maintenance of roads of provincial importance and placed the greater part of road mileage in the charge of local bodies.
After World War-1, motor transport came to the forefront which created revolution in India’s transportation system. Under the continued effect of high-speed motor transport, the existing roads soon get deteriorated. The local bodies, with their limited financial and meagre technical resources, could not deal with the situation properly and with the increased motor traffic, the condition of roads went from bad to worse. Then the central government. took the following steps towards the development of roads:
a.Appointment of Jayakar committee 1972
b. Creation of central road fund 1929
c. Estabkishment of Indian roads congress1934
d. Setting up of Nagpur Plan for road development 1943-1963.
The various steps taken by the Government. of India towards the development of roads in the country after independence are described here:
a.Setting up of Central road research institute 1960
b. Passing of the National highway act:
In 1956, the National Highway Act was passed. According to this act, the responsibility of development and maintenance of National Highways was given provisionally to the central government.
c. Setting up of Road development plan(1961-81)
Old Banihal Cart Road
‘A guide for visitors to Kashmir’ (1898) by W. Newman mentions Banihal route to Kashmir but adds that it was meant only for the royal family. In addition, Walter Rooper Lawrence, the Land settlement officer in Kashmir from 1889 to 1895 in his book ‘Valley of Kashmir’ (1895) regrets that valley in not connected to plains via Banihal pass which was something achievable and desirable. The route linking Srinagar to Rawalpindi railhead, Jhelum Valley Cart Road was already operational by 1890 using help of Spedding & Co, a private army of civil engineers maintained by Charles Spedding. The modern route via Banihal must have first come up in between those years. The road called ‘new’ Banihal route [BC Road, Banihal Cart Road] was finally completed in 1915 at a cost of about 40 lakh and opened to public in around 1922. The main Kashmiri engineer for the Banihal project was Pt. Laxman Joo Tickoo. With the opening of the motor-able all-weather road, the dreaded ‘Begar’ system, in which people would be forceful made to act like coolies for people crossing the treacherous passes, died.
Srinagar Jammu National Highway is a part of NH44 (former name NH 1A before renumbering of all national highways) system and connects Srinagar (Kashmir Valley) with Jammu City. The distance between Jammu Tawi and Srinagar was 295 km[1] and has been reduced by about 30 km after commissioning of Chenani-Nashri Tunnel, new Banihal road tunnel and other small tunnels. These tunnels will also help keep the highway open during winter avalanches. It is one of the two road links (other being Mughal road) that connects Kashmir Valley with the rest of India. The traffic on the highway is controlled by two control rooms, one in Srinagar and other in Jammu.
Features:The highway starts from Lal Chowk, Srinagar and then passes through Pulwama district, Anantnag district, Kulgam district, Ramban district, Udhampur district and ends in Jammu city. The highway lies in Kashmir valley for first 68 km up to Qazigund and then passes through series of Mountains up to Jammu. The highway is famous for Patnitop Hill station, Jawahar Tunnel, Sweets of Kud and Tea of Sarmuli. The highway is often closed during winter days due to heavy snowfall in Kashmir valley and district Ramban. Many landslides and avalanches in the mountainous region leads to closure of highway during winters.
The government of Jammu and Kashmir spends lot of money every year on maintenance of the highway. At many sites new roads with less number of road curves and tunnel are constructed which would not only provide comfort to the passengers but would also reduce distance between the two cities.
The railway line connecting Baramulla at the western end of Kashmir Valley with Banihal across the Pir Panjal Range of mountains has eased traffic on the highway as many people prefer to travel in train up to Banihal because train travel is both economical and time-saving. The distance between Qazigund, north of the Pir Panjal mountains, and Banihal, south of Pir Panjal mountains, is 35 km by road compared to only 17 km by railway and the train takes hardly one-fourth time and fare. A trial run from Katra to Srinagar has been made successfully a few days back.
New developments:Here are some recent developments on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway:
Tunnels: The Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Tunnel and the Banihal Qazigund Road Tunnel have reduced the distance between Jammu and Srinagar by about 40 km.
Zojila Tunnel: The foundation of this 14.2 km tunnel was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2018. It will be Asia’s longest road tunnel and will reduce travel time by 2 hours.
Z-Morh Tunnel: This 6.5 km tunnel was recently completed near Z-Morh, 20 km away from the Zojila Pass. It has connected Gagangir directly to Sonamarg in Kashmir.
Flyovers: Flyover have been/are being constructed at Bemina Crossing, Sanat Nagar Crossing, and Nowgam Crossing.
Service road: A service road has been/is being constructed along NH-44 on both sides.
Main carriageway: The main carriageway from 4.5 to 11.5 kms has been/is being renewed.
The Jammu and Kashmir government maintains and improves the highway.
The Srinagar-Jammu National Highway is being widened to improve connectivity and reduce travel time. The project began in 2011 and is being executed in stages:
Realignment: To avoid dangerous areas, the project was realigned to bypass points like Panthial, Marog, Khuni Nullah, Digdol, and Battery Chashma.
Tunnels and bridges: To avoid landslide-prone areas, tunnels and bridges are being /have been built.
Road widening: The carriageway is being widened to two lanes at various locations, including Dhalwas, Mehar-Cafeteria, Panthiyal, and Nachlana.
Restoration: The road is being restored from Nashri to Banihal.
The highway is the only all-weather road connecting Kashmir to the rest of India. Widening the highway will reduce the distance by 50 km and cut travel time in half. The project will also develop basic infrastructure in the region, which will contribute to the overall economic development of the state.
The four-lane road is being built at a cost of Rs 16,000 crore and out of this four-laning of 210 km route has been completed, including 10 tunnels of 21.5 km and several crucial bridges and one Ramban Viaduct.
ROAD SAFETY:
A national conference on Road Safety was held by Kashmir R&B Department in collaboration with Indian Road Congress (IRC) at SKICC Srinagar in …….. in which I too attended along with other engineers from outside the J&K State and the local engineers. Many papers were presented in the conference and useful suggestions were made to improve the geometry of roads besides adopting other safety measures.
Our National Highway, being mostly in the hilly terrain, has proved to be a very risky road and hence the cause of frequent accidents resulting into injuries and deaths. I have myself watched a chain of army vehicles rolling down the mountain at the turning point on Banihal side when our survey team was surveying the alignment of Jammu-Srinagar 132 KVA transmission line in 1966. On many occasions the passenger buses and other four wheelers meet fatal accidents on the highway. Now with the widening of the highway into four lanes the chances of accidents shall be reduced.
As compared to the roads outside J&K UT we find that many of our roads, including the city roads, are lacking in the installation of road signages. Besides we lack proper registered driving schools for issuing the license to the drivers as is prevalent outside our UT.
Absence of the proper laybys for bus stops in the interior city roads is one of the causes of frequent traffic jams. Besides parking vehicles on either side of the roads is another menace. In many cities no vehicle permit is issued in absence of a parking space in the bouse owner or shopping center against this every day our road space gets congested by addition of hundreds of newly permitted vehicles. In this bank loans are playing their own part. Alternatively, the authorities must acquire land/property to build multi-storied parking spaces.
Since most of our internal roads are not designed for the vehicular traffic, it is advisable to either widen the roads to the prescribed standards by removal of houses or close such roads for vehicular traffic so that only pedestrian traffic moves there as has been the practice in many other countries.
Strict punishments for violating the traffic rules are imposed outside J&K UT like imprisonment, seizure of vehicles, cancellation of licenses in case of violation of traffic rules. All roads are under the surveillance of CCTV cameras and the fine from the defaulter’s bank account is recovered on the same day thus minimizing the road accidents.
The pedestrians are provided with facilities for crossing the roads with proper functional signals and never a vehicle dares to violate the traffic signal or even touch the marked lines on the roads. Thus, the sight of traffic police has been obviated due to the surveillance of the CCTV cameras.
Thus, there is a lot of scope for the improvement of our vehicular traffic on our roads to avoid the tragic accidents as we witness every now and then resulting in the loss of precious lives.
However, with the completion of Delhi-Katra-Srinagar railway line the stress on highway is bound to be reduced with the alternative mode of transport.
Er. Mohammad Ashraf Fazili is a Former Chief Engineer.
