The road maintenance works of over seven kilometres along the Punakha-Gasa highway was stopped abruptly in mid-July after the monsoon affected the work progress. While the work is expected to resume after the rainy season, travellers and residents are frustrated with the current condition of the road.
The surface layers of the stretch from Togwagangtog in Kabesa Gewog to Yagay-Magay in Goenshari Gewog have deteriorated to a point that they need to be replaced. While almost all the drain constructions along the road are complete today, the resurfacing was delayed due to the monsoon.
“If not for this, our works would have reached the blacktopping stage at this time,” said Phub Dorji, the Site Engineer for Bumzang Construction Pvt. Ltd.
The condition is deteriorating by the day and the residents are not happy.
“The road condition of five kilometres from Tongma-Gangto used to be bad from before and it has now become worse. Before it used to take twenty minutes to reach my children to Kabesa school, now it takes more than half an hour,” said Ugyen Dorji, a Teacher of Goenshari Primary School in Punakha.
“The road condition is not improving. I don’t know whether the resurfacing work was hampered by the monsoon. On top of that, some additional portion of the road is also damaged now. So, it is inconvenient for the people of Gasa and Goenshari. However, the monsoon is almost over, we expect them to start the works soon and do the maintenance for all the damaged road,” said Yeshi Dorji, the Goenshari Gup.
And the road condition is proving costly for the taxi drivers.
“As taxi drivers, we have to travel on this road every day. While we can only earn about Nu 800 as a one-way fare, we land up spending more than that on maintenance because of the road. We would be grateful if the road could be blacktopped at the earliest,” said Jigme Tshering, a Taxi Driver.
The Department of Roads Regional office in Lobesa has awarded the resurfacing works to one of the private construction companies with a budget of more than Nu 32.1 M. The stretch will be resurfaced with a blacktop thickness of four centimetres.
“We are hopeful that we will be able to complete the work within the target duration as we have got almost everything ready now. In the process, there was some delay due to the monsoon. But, we are ready to start the work as soon as the weather improves,” the site engineer added.
The construction company expects to resume the resurfacing works by the first week of the next month. However, residents and travellers have to put up with the inconvenience until February next year to enjoy a smooth ride along this stretch.
Changa Dorji, Punakha
Edited by Sonam
