Facing hardship to view Ajanta Caves even after 10 years

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: Driving smoothly to visit the world heritage Ajanta Caves without any traffic hassles through Jalgaon national highway remains a dream come true for the domestic and international tourists, for the past one decade or more.

The delay in completion of the highway is annoying the tourists and tour-operators as they complained of being forced to face hardship in seeing the world famous monument through the incomplete muddy road. The experts fear that this inconvenience is bringing a bad name to the Tourism capital and may decline the footfall of tourists in future, especially the foreigners.

Converting the existing 2-lane carriageway into a four lane was proposed in 2019, but the sorry state of the route has been since 2015. It was undertaken by the National Highway Division (NH-Division) of the Public Works Department (PWD).

In 2015, the vice president of China Li Yuanchao faced inconvenience while on a visit to Ajanta Caves in November. Hence the Ministry of External Affairs complained about it to the Maharashtra Government. PWD was held responsible for the sorry state of the road. Hence the NH-Division spent Rs 30 crore on repair and maintenance of the highway. Then again, a budget of Rs 15 crore was spent on the similar task in 2018. Later on, the road was proposed for widening into a four-lane in 2019 by spending Rs 1,000 crore. However, six years have passed and the road work is still incomplete in 2025.

According to PWD officials, “ Out of the 95-km long road, there is a dispute over 25 km length. We will complete the remaining portion by July 2025.”

Initially, the PWD shortlisted Andhra Pradesh’s contractor Rithwik Agency in 2019, but it disappointed the office. Since then three contractors were assigned the work of concretisation of roads. The long road was divided into three phases of valuing Rs 304 crore, Rs 250 crore and Rs 316 crore respectively. The work did not happen.

Bottleneck on road

The four-laning work of national highway (NH 753F) extending from Harsul to Fardapur is lying incomplete. Hence the tourists visiting the Ajanta Caves face inconvenience. The issue of relocating a graveyard, located near the road, is lying as it is for the last two and a half years. This is causing a bottleneck for the traffic.

The sub-divisional officer (SDO) Vyanket Rathod clarified, “ Nobody from the NH-Division of PWD has demanded to acquire land for road widening by relocating the graveyard in Harsul area. The division which has to widen the road itself seems to be not serious about the issue.”