DEHRADUN: Asking officials to speed up repair work of roads en route to the four Himalayan shrines, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat has said he will travel by road to the last point of each Char Dham Yatra routes to review preparations for this year’s pilgrimage.
Rawat has directed the officials to expedite repair and reconstruction of all roads on the yatra route so that they are fit to use before the start of the pilgrimage in April-May, an official release here said.
He assigned monitoring responsibilities of the different yatra routes to senior bureaucrats and will travel by road to the last point of each of the routes before the start of the yatra season to assess preparedness for the annual Char Dham pilgrimage, it said.
The flash floods in 2013 caused severe damages to the roads on Char Dham Yatra routes and was a blow to Uttarakhand’s tourism.
Arrangements along Char Dham routes must be robust enough to ensure that it does not take long to reopen the roads in case of blockades during the yatra season, Rawat said.
He also asked officials to focus on the slide zones like Sirobagad and Lambagad and appoint dedicated teams of the PWD for the purpose if necessary.
Making it clear that no laxity in this regard will be tolerated, Rawat has asked officials to review repair work on the yatra route every ten days.
The Chief Minister asked officials concerned to identify land for relocating families likely to be affected by the repair and reconstruction work of the roads in the Lambagad village.
The formalities for construction of a multi-level parking lot in Govind Ghat on way to Hemkunt Sahib must be completed soon.
The famous Himalayan shrines of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Yamunotri and Gangotri are closed for pilgrims annually for winters due to snowbound conditions and are reopened in April-May every year.
Additional Chief Secretary, Rakesh Sharma, has been asked to monitor the repair work of Rudraprayag-Kedarnath route, Additional Secretary Arvind Hyanki has been assigned the task of monitoring Yamunotri route, Commissioner Garhwal has been asked to monitor Badrinath route while IG Garhwal entrusted with the task of monitoring Gangotri route, it said. -PTI
