Road to Nowhere

For any growth to happen the most important thing is Infrarstruture. Roads are one of the most important component of Infrastructure. A lot of obvious and not so obvious things depend on the availability( or the lack of it) of roads. In our country the best of roads are generally some or the other Highways, National Highways to be more precise. One such NH is the NH 33, considered the lifeline of Jharkhand. In June this year a strange incident occurred on this NH 33.
The NH caved at a location, 60 KMs from Ranchi.

This was the first time I was hearing about such a case like collapsing/caving of a road, leave apart caving of a NH. At a place called Kuju, the road simply caved in the centre leaving a big hole of around 3 metre radius. It was a result of underground fire caused due to the illegal mining of coals happening in and around Kuju for past many years. Due to this mining, the portion of earth under the NH had been emptied and the coal present there caught fire. This fire spread like most others coal fire, not possible to control. This fire also brought along with gases like Methane, Carbon monoxide and other dangerous gases.
The fire has been raging since then.
Its been more than six months since that incident but no one has come forward to accept the blame, and to make the diversion. The NH swung into action at a pace which generally one will associate with it. The present diversion around Kuju is like some sort of heart stopping, dusty adventurous trip. You can either reach safely the other side of road in your vehicle or sans your vehicle. There have been cases of vehicle breaking down in the diversion, I was a victim in one such case ! The diversion has bigger things in store for the bigger vehicles. They either tumble upside down, causing the whole traffic to come to a standstill ( I also got stuck up in one such traffic jam !) or reach the other side of road, barely 1 KM away in 15 minutes. I forgot to mention the “toll tax” they have to shelve out to the local villagers who allow the vehicles to pass through area, and who also water the driveway to control dust. Some other heavier vehicles have to altogether avoid this route and take an alternate route which can be as long as 100 KMs to rejoin the earlier route. This extra distance travelled is a cost to the transporter, the company whose goods are being transferred and often to the consumers who end up purchasing those goods.
I am not sure to whom does the accountability for this extra cost goes to; whether NH officials, whether local administration who couldn’t control this illegal mining, or some other unknown quantity? One thing which I am however sure of is that this road leads to nowhere !!