Triggered by the recent heavy snowfall, about a two-kilometre stretch of the Gewog Centre (GC) road at Malaya pass in Zhemgang has been closed to traffic for about three weeks now. And this has caused inconveniences to the people. The road connects Buli, Shingkhar and Bardo with the rest of the gewogs in the district.
With limited capacity and resources, the local authorities have only been able to clear the fallen trees.
“We have tried our best to restore the road with an excavator machine deployed on the site. People have cleared the fallen tree debris but we could not break through the deep ice formation on the road. And we have decided to leave the restoration works and let the ice melt. So, if the weather is clear, it would take a few days for the snow to melt for the vehicles to ply through the road,” said Singay Wangchuk, Nangkor Gup.
“The roadblock has affected in carrying out our planned activities. We could resume the ongoing GC road construction works and could not bring fuel for our construction machines and we had to stop our blacktopping works. Apart from this, the heavy snowfall has disrupted the electricity supply and internet connectivity in the gewog disrupting our daily activities,” said Tshering Lhendup, Shingkhar Gup.
Meanwhile, most of the people in Bardo Gewog are using the 48-kilometre farm road via Rindibi under Trong Gewog as an alternative route which is rough and bumpy.
“We are not affected like Shingkhar Gewog as we have an alternative road recently completed via Langdurbi-Rindibi. As a result of the snowfall, we do not have electricity and internet connection disrupting our daily activities,” said Tshering Tenzin, Bardo Mangmi.
The Department of Roads handed over the 100-kilometre GC road to the gewogs in 2019.
Pema Samdrup, Zhemgang
Edited by Sonam Pem
