The recent collapse of multiple stretches of the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway (NH-44) after just a single day of rainfall is not merely a natural disaster — it is a man-made tragedy that exposes the deep flaws in our infrastructure planning and governance.
NH-44, once envisioned as an all-weather, four-lane highway connecting the Kashmir Valley to the rest of India, has turned into a cautionary tale of engineering misadventure and environmental negligence. The highway, despite massive financial investments and grand promises, continues to crumble year after year, putting thousands of lives at risk and paralysing a region heavily dependent on it for food, medicine, tourism, and trade.
The most disturbing failures have occurred in the Ramban-Banihal stretch, where unscientific methods like vertical slope cutting were carried out without proper geotechnical assessments. Predictably, these have triggered landslides, road cave-ins, and recurring collapses. Even after blacklisting the initial consultants and revising the project with new tunnel-based plans, collapses like that at Cafeteria Morh and Seri reveal that we are still not learning from past mistakes.
What’s more alarming is that while NH-44 was failing, the Public Investment Board rejected alternative tunnel proposals on NH-244, citing that NH-44 provides sufficient year-round connectivity. This bureaucratic blindness underscores how decision-making continues to ignore ground realities and scientific advice.
It is high time we shifted our infrastructure development model from one of blind ambition to one rooted in responsibility and sustainability. Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) must be based on sound scientific and geological studies. Every contractor and consultant must be held strictly accountable for lapses. Regular third-party audits and real-time monitoring should become the norm.
Most importantly, the over-reliance on a single corridor like NH-44 must end. Alternative routes — through tunnels or viaducts — must be urgently developed. The cost of delay is not just measured in financial losses or project delays, but in human lives and dignity.
If NH-44 is to be the lifeline it was meant to be, it must be rebuilt not just with cement and steel, but with wisdom, accountability, and respect for the fragile ecology it traverses. Otherwise, it will remain a grim monument to negligence, and a highway not to progress, but to havoc.
