The seven states of north east have a combined road length fractionally less than the 30,985 kilometres in Delhi. And, of course, each of the 13 major national highways are single lane, so a night journey on them is a highly promising one.
But that picture has begun to change a bit. Traveling on the picturesque NH 52 between Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh and Dibrugarh in Assam, the road often breaks into double lane, while the flattened piles of boulders along the road presage the arrival of a four-lane road by next year.
On every tea shop on the way, the excitement is tangible. In the north east, roads count.
Even the terrorists or civilian protesters know that. Which is why the now over 100-day blockade of National Highway 39 by Nagas has brought Manipur to its knees.
Which is why too, the improvement of the road network is the biggest thing that has happened to the region in the 64 years since Indian independence.
The states have a scarce budget to meet even the maintenance expenditure for existing roads. Statistics from the ministry for the development of north-eastern region shows that of the R2,807.74 crore the states spent between 2005-10 on road maintenance, nearly 28% came as grant from the Centre.
That translates into a princely sum of R1.75 lakh for each kilometre?barely enough to even paint the milestones on the road edges. Spending to build new roads from their budget is out of the question.
Manipur?s lifeline is NH 39, which connects the state to east Assam via Nagaland. The alternative is NH 53 which links it to Silchar, the trading hub in West Bengal through which every consignment for the north east moves.
As Sajjad Hassan, the erudite director of the civil service training academy in Imphal, the state capital, says, ?Manipur lives on these roads.? A petrol tanker from lower Assam now travels close to 100 kilometres more to reach Imphal because of the blockade.
No wonder when both are blocked, Manipur citizens pay absurdly high prices for everything from rice to petrol, vegetables to cooking gas. A common enough sight on NH 39 is a row of Manipur-bound trucks held up due to a blockade or another, sometimes called by Nagas, other times by Kukis, the two tribal communities fighting for domination of the Manipur hills and holding the state to ransom in more ways than one.
Beyond the violence, what these states need is a solution over and above the existing roads. This means new connections, blasting through fresh hillsides, without waiting for traffic to build up. SREI Infrastructure Finance chairman and managing director Hemant Kanoria says, “The government should develop these projects on an annuity basis. The north east of the country would not have the desired traffic and hence are not suitable stretches for tolling.?
In the annuity model of road development, government compensates the developer through periodic payments. In tolling mode, the developer gets the right to charge toll from user of the roads.
Some Developers senior vice-president DV Raju agrees with Kanoria, “There is no bar on private firms from participating in these projects. However, by their nature, projects in north-eastern India are not remunerative enough to evince interest from the private sector.”
The quality of the roads network of the seven states is just tolerable in Assam, and degenerates to the worst in Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur?both these states share long boundaries with China and Myanmar. On NH 52, there are stretches where rivulets flow over the road, through which our vehicle navigated, as water poured into the vehicle. When the rainy season hits, these become death traps.
Assam has the longest stretch of national highways in the north east, accounting for 2,836 km, with National Highway 31 one of the earliest to be built, meeting Bihar and Bengal at Salmara and Nalbari in lower Assam and is 322 km long. Other roads, particularly NH 37, 52 and 54, ensure that highways criss-cross the length and breadth of the state. With the north-eastern states sharing a long border (about 2,000 km) with China, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, many roads lead right up to the border, like NH 39 (Myanmar), NH 151 (Bangladesh). The shortest highway in the state is NH 62 (Damra-Baghmara-Dalu), 5 km. While Damra is in Assam, Dalu is in Meghalaya and while 5 km falls in Assam, the rest 190 km stretches to Meghalaya.
Hassan, however, sees fresh urgency in road construction in his state. ?The plans are there and the capacity, like the one from Imphal to Moreh on the Myanmar border, is developing,? he says.
With the Chinese threat hanging over Arunachal Pradesh, its roads network needs urgent upgrade. The remote state is still building its road network and has only 902-odd km of national highways. Of these, NH 52 and 52B account for the longest stretch (750-odd km) and meets Assam’s northern districts of Dibrugarh and Tezpur.
Most of the north-eastern states are land locked and thus dependent on roads, but more needs to be done to add to the national highways and beef up security. Meghalaya, for instance, has only 800-odd km of highways, and depends a lot on the road network of Assam to meet its essential supplies. National Highway 62 is used mostly by coal traders of the Nangal Dubu coalfields, with the trucks often carrying far more than the stipulated 15-tonne load.
In May, NH 40 between Guwahati and Shillong came to a halt because of a procession of coal-laden trucks which held up other traffic. At least 10,000 trucks laden with coal or cement traverse this narrow national highway, often holding up passengers rushing to catch flights out of Guwahati from Shillong. Meghalaya doesn?t have a major airport and is dependent on Assam.
But the state which appears to have suffered the most due to blockades on highways is Manipur.
The landlocked state is totally at the mercy of the road network of Nagaland and Assam for all its supplies and has an NH support of only 959 km.
Patricia Mukhim, editor of Shillong Times, wonders why the 55,000 security forces stationed in Manipur haven’t been used to remove the blockade on NH 39. ?The central government is not serious about the region. And the state governments too aren’t really empowered to deal with the situation. The bandh of the highways is a tool of tyranny and should be stopped.?
The small state of Nagaland has only 494 km of national highways, of which NH 39 is famous, for perhaps all the wrong reasons. In the long history of insurgency troubling both Nagaland and Manipur and the Naga tribes’ dream for Nagalim (a bigger state comprising hill districts of Manipur), the highway has been blocked innumerable times, bringing great hardship to the people of
Manipur. NH 150 and 155, newer roads to be built, now connect the remote areas of Nagaland like Tuensang and Meluri with Manipur and Aizawl.
When NH 39 is blocked, people wanting to catch flights out of Nagaland?Dimapur has the only airport in the state?pay the price. Sometimes, patients waiting to fly out for treatment are at the receiving end. If it?s not blockades, then it?s landslides. At least two stretches of NH 39 have landslides every year during the rainy season, causing immense hardship to the people.
Recently, NH 57 connecting Assam and the Garo hills was used by the Rabhas of Assam to demand an autonomous council. Such stoppages affected many tribes, including Bodos, Garos and Rabhas themselves, but most of all the people of the Garo Hills, whose only link to the world outside is NH 57. Compared to Manipur, Mizoram has 927 km of national highways and is well connected with states like Assam. Now NH 150 also links it to Imphal and Ukhrul (Manipur) and Jessami (Nagaland). More importantly, it has opened up another entry to Manipur.
The southern state of Tripura has 417 km of national highways, connecting it to Meghalaya and Mizoram (NH 44 and NH 44A).
The earthquake in Sikkim threw up another aspect of the highways in the north east?maintenance issues. Sikkim has only 62 km of national highway. NH 31A connects Sivok-Gangtok, part of which was destroyed in the recent earthquake.
Clearly, it?s a long road to progress.
