NHIDCL silent on July 8 rockslide; cold-shoulders joint survey report

NHIDCL executive director Riten Kumar Singh has claimed that the rockslide was a natural calamity

DIMAPUR— The National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd. (NHIDCL) which had claimed that the July 4 rockslide near Chathe Bridge on the Dimapur-Kohima four-lane road in Chümoukedima was “due to natural calamity,” is yet to respond to Saturday’s rockslide which occurred a few metres away from the July 4 incident site.

While there was no report of casualty or damage to vehicles in Saturday’s rockslide, two people were killed and three others injured in the July 4 incident.

Earlier, NHIDCL executive director Riten Kumar Singh who visited the incident site of the first rockslide on July 6 had claimed that the rockslide was a natural calamity.

After the July 4 incident, the NHIDCL had taken to twitter to express condolences and regrets on the unfortunate road accident and expressed regret that “such an accident occurred despite our continuous efforts to maintain all the necessary road safety measures.” It went on to inform that “NHIDCL has sent an expert team to the site to ascertain the causes and to suggest measures to prevent such incidents in future.”

It may be mentioned that the Deputy Commissioner of Chümoukedima who led a joint spot verification of Dimapur to Kohima four-lane package I & II on March 27, 2023, in his subsequent survey report submitted to the General Manager (P) NHIDCL, PMU-Dimapur on March 28, pointed out to “questionable engineering, sub standard construction material, committed or omitted connivance of the authority towards the unacceptable quality of work done by the contractors, design and construction of various elements that don’t augur well with common sense, poor workmanship, and lack of prudent and sincere monitoring of work.”

The survey report by the DC went on to state that “given the apparent poor quality of work with sinking road stretches, recurrent potholes, inadequate measures to mitigate landslides, clogged drains to name a few, it appears that the road may prove to be a permanent drain of resources of the state of Nagaland through its maintenance.

“Hence it becomes necessary and urgent to look into the approved plan, design and evaluation to ascertain if the road was constructed in accordance with the approved plan,” the report added.

The NHIDCL was directed to respond and submit its reports before March 31, 2023, and to consider the matter as “grave and urgent.”

However, after failing to get any response from the General Manager (P) NHIDCL, PMU-Dimapur, the DC Chümoukedima submitted the report of the March 27 joint survey to the Commissioner & Secretary, Works and Housing, on May 9, 2023.

The findings of the report also mentioned that at several locations, the quality of materials used such as iron bars appears to be sub-optimal at best; the measures for slope protection and rock fall mitigation appear to be highly questionable as also the design and execution of culverts.

The DC in his report further suggested the NHIDCL to recommend a technical survey to be carried out by whichever authority that is authorised to undertake the work executed by the NHIDCL, and also to verify NHIDCL’s claims that “the work at Package I & II is more than 99% complete.”

“Since soon the completion certificate shall be granted for the project it shall shift into the Defects Liability Period (DLP) which is four years. Before that it must be checked whether the execution of the project has been done in accordance with the approved design and the technical mandate of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH). Since the project is punctuated with cracking road, landslides, inadequate slope protection, etc., therefore after four years maintaining the road could be a huge drain of resource for the state,” the DC stated in his report to the Commissioner & Secretary, Works and Housing.

However, even after the July 4 incident, the NHIDCL continues to maintain that “the progress of work in both Packages-1&2 is above 99% and the work is nearly completed except for some minor works.”

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