BY SANTOSH MOHANTY
People of Bantala in Angul district in Odisha have urged the authorities to take immediate measures for chopping down the big mango tree which is leaning precariously beside the busy Old Cuttack-Sambalpur road for quite some time posing severe threat to human life.
It resembles a situation like the sword of Damocles is hanging over motorists and commuters passing through the route. Villagers said that that it is the responsibility of Public Works Department(PWD)and the State Highway authorities to chop down the tree and added that their lackadaisical attitude has put the lives of commuters in peril.
The tall dry mango tree standing close to Bantala Forest Range Office has huge branches that could crash into the road anytime. Some branches have already fallen on the busy route, but luckily none has been injured, nor any vehicle damaged so far. Locals said the dry branches fall on the road as wind speed increases and no one knows who will become a victim.
Neither Bantala Grampanchayat Sarpanch nor the police nor the forest officials are allegedly seemed to be little worried about the danger that might cost lives of innocent commuters and passerby if the dry mango tree comes down to the road at any time.
This tree was planted on the roadside during British Raj. The Britishers were fond of planting fruit bearing trees alongside the road during their rule.The volume of traffic has been increasing in old Cuttack-Sambalpur road as motorists from cities like Sambalpur, Chhattisgarh, Cuttack and Bhubaneswar prefer this route due to less congestion.
Traffic in National Highway(NH) no 55 that runs through Angul connecting Sambalpur to NH 5 has been badly hit over the years due to four lane work going on at a snail's pace. This has forced the motorists to take the bypass route through Bantala to travel to Bhubaneswar, the Capital city of Odisha and the business hub of Western Odisha, Sambalpur.
Nice
ReplyDeleteThanks for nice comment
DeleteOur bypass has become a dead road.
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