New Delhi: The Modi government has once again sought the approval of a Supreme Court-appointed panel for construction of the Champawat Bypass under the Char Dham project in Uttarakhand.
The panel, known as the Oversight Committee (OC), oversees the implementation of the 900-km Char Dham highway project, which aims to provide all-weather connectivity to four holy towns in the state — Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath.
In its report submitted before the apex court last week, the committee — headed by former SC judge A.K. Sikri — gave details of the renewed bid of the Union Ministry of Road, Transport, and Highways (MoRTH) for the bypass. The government wants to construct the bypass along the 150 km-long Tanakpur-Pithoragarh section of its “all-weather” Char Dham road in the hill state.
In the report, the latest of two submitted in the last year, the panel says it has yet to approve the 9.8 km project and has asked the central government to seek the consent of the Uttarakhand forest department. ThePrint has seen the document.
The ministry’s previous application, also submitted this year, had met with a similar fate.
In July 2020, another court-mandated panel — called the high-powered committee (HPC) — had denied permission for the bypass.
Then headed by environmental activist Ravi Chopra, the HPC dropped the project on the grounds that the proposed alignment of the road required the felling of trees in a Deodar forest area.
Speaking to ThePrint, Chopra said that when the HPC visited Champawat, it learnt about its tiny population and the pristine forest cover. “The existing road is inside the town and is 8-10 metres wide. Therefore, after detailed deliberations, it was suggested that the ministry should improve the existing alignment of the road that would happen at a much lower cost and without having much impact or causing damage to the green cover.”
The HPC is currently also headed by Sikri.
While the OC oversees implementation of the Char Dham project, the HPC is tasked with reviewing the feasibility of the ministry’s proposal to construct a two-lane road with a paved shoulder (a 10-metre carriageway).
It was on the HPC’s recommendation that the Supreme Court had, in September 2020, restricted the width of three crucial highways, Rishikesh to Mana, Rishikesh to Gangotri, and Tanakpur to Pithoragarh — all part of the project — to 5.5 metres.
But in December 2021, the apex court modified its own order to allow the defence ministry’s application to widen the three strategically important stretches to 10 metres.
In its application, the defence ministry said that these stretches served as feeder roads to the India-China border and were crucial for national security.
The SC’s December 2021 order also required the OC to submit a status report on the project every four months. The first report was submitted earlier this year, and the latest is the one submitted last week.
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‘Need forest department’s consent’
In its report, the OC says that the MoRTH has approached it twice over the bypass project.
The first time was on 21 May this year, when MoRTH’s regional office in Dehradun gave a detailed representation to the committee on the proposed bypass.
At that time, the OC took note of the high-powered committee’s July 2020 report that said “it was not feasible to construct Champawat Bypass having regard to the environmental issue”, according to the latest report.
It further says that the Uttarakhand’s forest department had rejected the proposal in 2020 and asked the ministry to approach it again for its consent.
In addition, the OC had also directed the ministry to undertake a comparative study of existing roads passing through Uttarkhand’s Champawat town and the proposed alignment of the bypass for its review, the report said.
In its meeting on 23 May, the OC had decided against considering the Champawat project, the report added.
The second proposal from MoRTH came on 11 July, in which the ministry had claimed it had completed the comparative study.
After this, the report further said, members of the oversight panel convened a virtual meeting on 27 July to discuss the proposal.
On specifically enquiring, the panel was told that the Uttarakhand forest department was yet to clear the project, the report said. The OC was also informed that the department’s previous refusal came in view of the HPC’s recommendations against the project, it added.
The ministry had also stated that the state forest department would be approached after the OC gives its approval.
The report said that after deliberations held on 15 August this year, the OC decided that since the forest department’s approval was imperative, it would be “appropriate for MoRTH to approach” it with a request for permission.
“In the said request, the ministry can place the necessary materials concerning the feasibility of the construction of Champawat Bypass and the manner in which the environmental concerns would be taken care of,” OC’s report to the top court says.
The panel also left it to the forest department to consider the request “independently” by applying its own standards and without being influenced by HPC’s 2020 recommendations.
The OC report also gives an update on the work completed so far on the Char Dham all-weather road. Out of 646 kilometres of the project already assigned to contractors, work on 578.8 km has been completed, a chart provided to the panel by MoRTH’s Dehradun office shows.
There are 53 projects, worth an estimated Rs 12,130 crore, under the Char Dham project, of which 41 have been sanctioned (at an estimated cost of Rs 9,242 crore).
Of these, contracts for 38 projects have been awarded, of which 19 are complete, the report says.
Meanwhile, two of the 12 projects that have yet to be sanctioned are currently in the tender stages, the report said, adding that one project had been “desanctioned”.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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