Missing road berms trouble commuters

Neeraj Bagga

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Tribune News Service

Amritsar, March 20

The missing road berms are causing accidents and early destruction of roads in the district. The area under the berms has been gradually encroached upon by farmers to increase their area under agriculture. Commuters are at the receiving end as it has narrowed the link roads.

A resident of Chhogawan village, Kuljit Singh, said there had been instances of accidents in the past when two approaching vehicles from the opposite directions collided.

Farmers usually encroach upon the road berms to increase their cultivable area. However, such tendency has resulted in a complete absence of berms alongside several link roads. “In case a vehicle, especially a truck or tractor-trailer, comes from the opposite side, there is no room for vehicles to pass.

At several places, the level of fields is two to three feet lower than the link roads, which can prove fatal in case of judgement error at the driver’s end.

Mahinder Singh, a resident of Guru Amardas Avenue, said, “The level of the road and berm should be equal. The district administration’s instruction to reclaim the road berm area is laudable.”

Sensing the trouble, the district administration has passed instructions to the government departments to recreate berms on either sides of the link road.

Deputy Commissioner Shivdular Singh Dhillon said he had directed officials concerned of the Local Bodies, Mandi Board and Rural Development departments to lay kutcha (non-concrete) path, called berms, on the embankments of link road after the wheat season. He accepted that missing berms were causing accidents and brawls among commuters.

He elaborated that it would be ensured that the berms be of the level of road surface. He also directed the Block Development Panchayat Officers to ensure that no link road, leading to villages, should be without berms.