Widening of NH-275: Learn from Black Forest Autobahns

Sir,

While the pros of widening NH-275 and newer Railway lines across the Western Ghat are known only to NHAI and Indian Railways (and probably to the interested politicians and contractors), the cons are known to every citizen of West Coast, Kodagu, Malenadu and people depending on the waters of Cauvery, Krishna and Godavari rivers, and innumerable rivers flowing towards the Arabian Sea (that is, in effect the entire population of South India). In other words, the ecological damage in terms of shortage of rainfall and climate change by building more roads or newer Railway lines will be catastrophic.

And yet NHAI is bent upon going ahead with the project spending thousands of crores of rupees. Why don’t they learn from autobahns around Black Forest in Germany? (See photo).

It is a thickly forested mountain range roughly 60 kms in width and 160 kms in length. The super-highways run along the edges of the forest with only narrow roads to the various touristic spots within the forest.
As against the dimension of Black Forest which is small, the Western Ghat has a length of 1,600 kms and an average width of 100 kms. There is thick population not only on both sides of the Ghat but also a fair amount of population on the Ghat area itself. Therefore some roads and Railway lines are inevitable.

All ecologists and right-minded people believe that we have sufficient number of main roads and Railway lines across the Western Ghat. And most importantly, the width of the existing roads is good enough for the traffic density and there is hardly any gain in travel time by widening the road.

I am probably wasting my breath in giving the example of Black Forest of Germany because next thing one may hear of an official delegation of Ministers, politicians and road experts of NHAI making an on the spot study-tour of Germany and come back to the original decision to widen NH-275 ! So, Kodavas and Mysuruvasis should be prepared for drying up of Namma Cauvery.

– U.B. Acharya, Jayalakshmipuram, 13.12.2018

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