People travelling along Yadi and Ngatshang national highway in Monggar wants the ten-kilometre stretch of road to be maintained soon. It has been only one year since the blacktopping was complete.
However, many potholes and cracks have developed on the road.
Today the road is riddled with potholes. The blacktopping is a joint venture project between Yarkay Group Private Limited and Long Yeae Solution, an Indian based Company.
“The road between Nyingala and Yadi has been blacktopped. However, it’s inconvenient for us since the highway is filled with potholes. It takes an hour to reach Ngatshang from Yadi. We need to drive slowly. When we have some important works and patient in the car, it is a problem,” said Phuntsho Namgay, a resident of Yadi in Monggar.
“The quality of blacktopping work is not good. There are a lot of potholes on the highway. And it’s not at all comfortable to drive. Firstly, it affects the maintenance of our car. Secondly since we have regional hospital in Monggar, road affects people from five gewogs who are travelling to the hospital. We can’t reach the hospital on time for quick medical checkups,” added Tenzin Wangchuk, also from Monggar.
Unlike other projects, the blacktopping there adopted a new method called zeocrete pavement construction on a trial basis by the Department of Roads (DoR). In this new method, unlike the conventional method, a little amount of cement is mixed with wet mix macadam and dried for 24 hours before doing finishing works. Comparing to the conventional method the new method also requires less bitumen and more cement, which would reduce import of bitumen.
“We maintained quality while doing blacktopping works. However, due to unstable soil, monsoon and zeocrete technology implementing for the first time in the country and moreover we couldn’t make road diversion for traffic like in other countries and could not give more time for setting of the road,” said Karma Rinzin, the Chief Engineer for DoR in Lingmethang, Monggar.
However, the highway would be maintained soon.
“Within the time span of 3 years, the joint venture companies were supposed to do repairing and maintenance work free of cost. It has been one year now and the company carried out some maintenance work last year. They have agreed to do the rest of the maintenance works as early as possible,” he added.
The Department of Roads spent over Nu 165 M for the blacktopping.
Sonam Tshering
