Santa’s face is pale and his hands are still trembling slightly.
“Banta,” he says, his voice low, “yesterday, I saw death on that highway.”
“My cousin’s little son fell gravely ill.”
“We got him into an ambulance, heading for the big AIIMS hospital in Rishikesh.”
“But as we neared the city… everything stopped.”
“The traffic?” Banta asks quietly.
“It wasn’t traffic, Banta; it was a wall of steel!”
Santa continues, his voice cracking.
“Cars, buses, jeeps, all packed together.”
“And then we found out why.”
“Some very important Netaji was visiting an ashram, and the police had halted traffic for his convoy.”
“The ambulance siren wailed and wailed, but there was nowhere to go.”
“That one kilometer to the hospital took us two hours.”
“Two hours, Banta, with a sick child gasping for breath inside.”
“By God’s grace, he made it.”
“But I felt… helpless.”
“Utterly helpless.”
Banta places a steadying hand on Santa’s shoulder.
“What you experienced yesterday, Santa, was a small trailer of the horror that would unfold during a real disaster.”
“You saw how Rishikesh is a Gale ki Phansi – a bottleneck.”
“A bottleneck?”
“Yes,” Banta explains.
“It is the single lifeline for the entire Garhwal region. On a normal day, it is choked with tourists, pilgrims, and rafting jeeps.”
“Add a VIP movement to that, and it becomes paralyzed, as you saw.”
“Now, imagine a major earthquake has struck the mountains, or a flash flood is raging.”
“Hundreds are injured. \”
“Dozens of ambulances, rescue teams, army trucks all need to rush through this very same bottleneck.”
“How will they?”
He continues grimly, “The same road that is supposed to bring help will become a deadly trap.”
“The routine traffic jam of today would become the critical failure of tomorrow, costing not just hours, but lives. This isn’t just about inconvenience anymore, Santa; it’s a matter of life and death for the entire region.”
“So what’s the solution, Banta?” Santa asks desperately.
“Stop the tourists?”
“Stop the VIPs?”
“The solution is smart planning,” Banta replies.
“We need a long-term plan to de-congest this artery.”
“We need bypass roads so that Char Dham traffic doesn’t have to enter the city.”
“We need multi-level parking outside the main town, with smaller electric vehicles taking people inside.”
“And yes, we need a minimal, no-disruption protocol for VIP visits that doesn’t hold the entire region’s lifeline hostage.”
“Our administration’s priority must be the smooth flow of life-saving traffic, not just the smooth passage of one important car.”
DRR Messages (for policymakers and public):
- The perpetual traffic congestion in Rishikesh is a critical vulnerability that would paralyze any large-scale disaster response or evacuation effort.
- A long-term, strategicTraffic Decongestion Plan (including bypasses, parking facilities, public transport) is an urgent disaster mitigation necessity.
- VIP protocols must be reformedto ensure they do not disrupt the movement of emergency services and the public, especially during peak seasons or emergencies.
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