For farming communities, better road connectivity plays a vital role in enhancing their agricultural opportunities. Likewise, farmers of Korphu Gewog in Trongsa are looking forward to scaling up commercial farming as the much-awaited Gewog centre road has been repaired and blacktopped.
The nearly 20-kilometre stretch was constructed as a farm road in 2011. However, the road was upgraded to a GC road in 2016. Hence, realignment and blacktopping works began since then.
The works were completed just over two weeks ago after missing several deadlines. With improved road, about 180 households of Korphu Gewog are hoping to reap farming as well as transport benefits.
“Earlier, it used to take a minimum of two hours to reach the Gewog office from Wangdigang, the GC road point. But now, it is a journey of just 30 minutes. The damage to vehicles has also reduced due to the improved road,” said Korphu Gup, Sangay Khandu.
Farmers, there are hoping the improved road would bring the much needed socio-economic development in the gewog.
“Earlier, after the sunset, people would not travel due to the bad road condition. But now, people travel day and night that the traffic has intensified,” said Dorji, one of the villagers from Nabji.
The blacktopped GC road also brought happiness to some villagers, whose children are studying in faraway schools.
“Some students in our village are studying in schools in Trongsa and Zhemgang. So, with better road conditions we can easily get a ride to go and meet them. Earlier, this was difficult,” shared Sonam Wangmo from Nimzhong.
Meanwhile, there are certain parts along the GC road, which could not be blacktopped owing to the marshy area. For this, the Gewog administration has sought machinery support from the Department of Roads to ensure traffic is uninterrupted, especially during the monsoon.
“As DoR has all the machinery and equipment, we would like to request them to use it. Otherwise, there is a danger of huge landslides and erosion to occur around the plain stretch during the monsoon,” added Korphu Gup, Sangay Khandu.
The department denied the request since they are not the right agency to render such help. They said since GC roads are handled by the dzongkhag administration, the gewog should ask them for assistance.
The Dzongkhag administration, in the meantime, is assessing the stretch that was not blacktopped to take appropriate actions.
Funded by the Government of India, more than Nu 105 M was spent for the blacktopping and realignment works of the GC road. With this, all GC roads in five gewogs of Trongsa have been blacktopped.
Passang, Trongsa
Edited by Pema Lhaden
