Why road to Nalanda good, Gaya bad: Patna HC

PATNA: The Patna high court on Friday expressed surprise over “tremendous difference” in the quality of roads leading to Nalanda and Gaya from the state capital.
A division bench of Justice Jyoti Saran and Justice Ashutosh Kumar made verbal remarks while hearing a PIL filed by Gaurav Kumar Singh. The court observed that while the road to Nalanda is so good that one can reach there from Patna in around two hours, but it takes at least eight hours to reach Gaya despite the difference of hardly 20km in distance from the state capital.Incidentally, Nalanda is the home district of CM Nitish Kumar.
The PIL has been filed for the overall infrastructural development of Gaya, including construction of sewage treatment plant (STP) for reducing high nitrate content in water and proper handling of waste as dumping debris was adversely affecting the water in river Falgu. Counsel Sumit Kumar Singh represented the petitioner.
Justice Saran rapped the state government while sharing his experience of travelling to Patna from Dhanbad via Gaya. He remarked that it took around three hours to travel more than 200km to reach Gaya and eight hours from there to Patna.
“Look at Patna-Gaya road and Patna-Nalanda road. Why there is such a difference when all your foreign tourists come to Gaya, which is a heritage site. The road construction department (RCD) is in a hopeless condition,” Justice Saran remarked.
“If senior citizens travel on Patna-Gaya road without seat belts, 90% of them will develop cervical problems,” he remarked.
Additional advocate general Anjani Kumar tried to convince the court that the condition was not that bad and a lot of development works were going on for Gaya.
But the court was not convinced and passed order to make RCD and National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) respondents in the matter with direction to file detailed counter affidavits before May 13 that what projects and development works were going on for improving road connectivity between Gaya and Patna via Jehanabad.
Dealing other aspects, the court also directed water resource department (WRD) to finalize a consultant and submit a detailed project report for construction of weir on river Falgu near Vishnupad temple in Gaya for visitors to store water round the year. WRD will also have to submit affidavit along with RCD and NHAI on May 13.