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Why motorists dread National Highway 215 in Joda region

BHUBANESWAR: Want to visit Joda in Orissa’s Keonjhar district? Carry adequate food and drinking water, because you never know how much time you have to spend on road to reach the mineral hotbed of the State.

Joda is the region from where iron-ore worth over Rs. 40,000 crore has been exported during past six years. However, it has been a difficult place to reach by road for a fortnight now.

Thanks to an un-motorable National Highway 215, the only major road link to the region. The bad shape of road has worsened due to rains and movement of thousands of iron-ore laden trucks.

Ask Priyanath Ray from coastal Jagatsinghpur district, he would tell how he managed to come out of the “cut-off region” by approaching neighbouring Jharkhand State by train and then entered Orissa at a different border point.

“Vehicles on the National Highway 215 are virtually stranded. Hundreds of trucks could be spotted on different sub-roads connecting Joda town. If you are in a four-wheeler, it is really difficult to gauge the travelling time between two places in that region,” Mr. Ray said.

Many people of the district, who don’t even know about the iron-ore export, suffer silently.

A letter to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik dispatched by Keonjhar Citizens Forum reads, “ordinary commuters are denied the access to this highway, most parts of the day due to unending traffic jams. The starting of movement of mineral traffic as the clock strikes 8 am is no less than a war cry.”

“The sleepless drivers and helpers spend days in liquor-vending dhabas and are in the most fowl and murderous mood on the steering wheel at night. About the road condition, the less said the better. Road accidents claim at least one life per day on the highway,” forum’s president Bhagirathi Mohanta said.

Should people of Keonjhar deserve this kind of treatment? There are a total of 109 mines basically of iron ore in the district with a leased area of over 33330 ha.

During past the five-year period ending March 2007, the total iron-ore mined and dispatched from the district was 162 million tonnes, whose price would be approximately Rs 40,000 crore, said Kiran Sahu, a retired wing commander and resident of the district.

Pertaining to forest loss, Joda has alone 16260 ha of forest area, of which 6542 ha had been diverted for non-forest use, mainly mining. Despite this loss to local resources, the NH 215 has not been made motorable.

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