21 landslip-prone sites in state

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, April 27

As many as 21 landslide-prone sites have been identified and the state government has sought assistance from the Centre under the landslide risk mitigation scheme being implemented by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) for treatment of these sites.

The Centre has asked the government to send a detailed project report in respect of each site and all Deputy Commissioners have been asked to prepare the DPRs at the earliest, Special Secretary (Disaster management) DD Sharma said.

Four sites are spotted in tribal Kinnaur district, three in Shimla, two each in Bilaspur, Hamirpur, Chamba, Kullu, Sirmaur, Solan, and one each in Una and Mandi while Kangra and Lahaul and Spiti have no such site.

The sites identified included the Karcham-Sangla-Chitkul road, the Urni slope, Nathpa in the west of Nichhar village and the Kilba slide in Kinnaur, a slide near Naina Devi on the Kiratpur road in Bilaspur, Tauni Devi and Badsar in Hamirpur, a slide between Bangana and Badsar in Una, Ghatighar on the Chamba-Tissa road and Ranghar near Dharwala in Chamba, Nallah Serian from Panjani Mahadev towards the Army camp and area opposite to the airport in Bhuntar.

Baldwara in Mandi, the High Court area and Tibetian market on the Ridge in Shimla, Sajla in Jubbal, the Shama Pamta area of Kamru village and Renukaji in Paonta Sahib in Sirmaur district, Kunihar and the Kandhar barrier road in Solan district are other bottlenecks.

The reasons for frequent landslides and data about the ecology and geology of the identified sites will also be gathered and incorporated in the DPR.

The landslides and road breaches obstruct vehicular traffic and cause hardships to people, said an apple grower Sonam Chauhan in the upper Shimla region.

Urni landslips traced to rain pattern shift

The frequent landslides at Urni on the Hindustan-Tibet national highway in Kinnaur are the result of change in the rainfall and snowfall pattern in the last two years.

These observations have been made in the survey conducted through remote sensing and satellite imagery interpretation and geological field studies which also attributed the landslides to heavy irrigation.

The highway has been widened at the bottom of this location having steep slope which has destablised the old landslide due to toe cutting of the slope, the study pointed out and suggested that the landslide area could be avoided by constructing a small diversion tunnel, which will reduce the present makeshift diversion road from 25 km to 6.5 km between Tapri and Choling.

The study also suggested that reduction in heavy irrigation in horticulture and agriculture fields will reduce the phenomenon of landslide immediately.