NH40 And Me

Most of you my friends already know my love for Shillong. Though living in Guwahati for more than 25 years we still have a house in Shillong, the same one where my husband is born and brought up. We spend most of our short school breaks,long weekends,Rongali Bihu, Durga Puja in Shillong. Not more than two years back travelling to
Shillong used to be so much fun because of the hassle free two and half hour drive and the  extremely picturesque landscapes that  NH40 offered.

 NH 40 is a National Highway of India entirely within the state of Meghalaya. It covers a distance of 216 km.It is the only lifeline for Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura and the Barak Valley districts of Assam. At present a mega project is underway to widen a 61.8km section of Jorabat-Barapani section of NH-40 into four lanes. This project was approved by the Central Government to ease traffic snarls on NH-40, which connects Guwahati with the State Capital and extends to Barak Valley in Assam and Mizoram through NH-44. Authorities say that the improvement of this NH to four-lane standard would  bring in prosperity and development of the region.

 This ambitious project has not only  hit the daily  road blocks, traffic congestion creating immense suffering to the travellers but also completely changed the previous lush green terrain into a muddy mess.

 Slashed hills ,boulders of all sizes .

 Busy machine.

A lone wall standing with a beautiful painting of Jesus on it.Wonder what made the machines stop here! I captured this picture last year .

Noticed this new wall painting near the same site where once stood that wall with Jesus painted on it.

It used to be a beautiful house on top of the hill .

 En route from Guwahati to Shillong, most of the travellers stopped mid way at Nongpoh to freshen up and get some refreshments as there were many coffee-tea shops around.This place was also visited by Rocky and Mayur of Highway On My Plate fame. Nongpoh is also a good place to pick up bamboo pickles,fresh local fruits ,vegetables and other condiments.Look at the above pictures ,this is how it stands now. I hope the people who lost their homes and shops have received handsome compensations from the government.

 Now travelling to Shillong needs strategic planning so as to avoid getting stuck in traffic jams.The  large-scale of overloaded coal trucks have ruined NH 40 over the last few years. An increasing number of ten-wheeler trucks are playing havoc with NH 40. Besides, the number of trucks plying on this highway is increased from around 1,500 per day to about 2,300 per day which has now become a nightmare for travellers because of the traffic jams occurring almost every day.On January 14th this year, the Union Minister of State for Water Resources was caught in such a jam which lasted for two days and the minister reached Shillong on a friend’s motorcycle.There are news of people missing their flights, babies being delivered on ambulances.

 After last month's trip we have a toy truck  at home which looks exactly like this.

A pretty cabbage farm. Not sure to find it the next time we are on NH40.Many farmers have already lost their agricultural fields.

 These lovely trees are next in line..

 This mini-truck was loaded with packs of match sticks.The truck driver fell asleep while smoking his bidi , so here is the result. Driver was not hurt in this .

 This is me reporting from NH40.