India is known for its pilgrimage sites that receive millions of devotees each year. Transportation and roadway facilities are a major challenge for the commuters at these sites, concerning which the Government of India introduced the ‘Char Dham Road Project’ in December 2016. The project aims at the construction of a 10 metres wide two-lane national highway in Uttarakhand with its north end at ‘Mana’ and the south end at ‘Rishikesh’.

In recent events, the Supreme Court of India said that two chief government bodies are not in coordination with each other for this project. The bench which was headed by Justice Rohinton F Nariman said, “It seems your own ministries are not in tandem with each other. They do not seem to be working with each other”, to the attorney general KK Venugopal.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and the Ministry of Defense (MoD) appear to be in conflict regarding the maintenance of the width of roadways at 5.5 metres. As per the recent affidavit by the MoD, the 2012 and 2018 circulars by the MoRTH did not take into consideration the need of security forces while specifying the width of the national highway roadways. These areas are highly crucial for the movement of tanks, troops, and armaments for the national security of the nation, and hence need to be strictly conserved with a restricted widening of roads allowed.

The affidavit complains about overlooking the movement of artillery and troops in hilly regions where the road widening has been restricted considering the number of vehicles plying every day, as stated by the MoRTH.

The MoD stated that it is quite unfortunate how this situation has been overlooked by the MoRTH, especially at this moment when the Indo-China relations on the border are ‘under jeopardy’.

The MoD suggests and seeks the bench to modify the order and restrict the road widening to 5.5 metres, with respect to the MoRTH circulars of 2012 and 2018 which failed to address this issue.

The SC had asked Venugopal to sort this matter out and resolve this conflict between the two ministries, once they receive the final report from the HPC in the next two weeks.