After days of punishing rain and two landslides on the Kalinga Ghat stretch of National Highway-157, Odisha’s Works Department has drawn a hard line: no traffic until the hillside is made safe.
Principal Secretary (Works) Sanjay Kumar Singh on Sunday inspected both failure points in Kandhamal, reviewed the damage with district and highway engineers, and directed officials to treat commuter safety as the only priority. The ghat is a vital link between Ganjam and Kandhamal. It has been closed or tightly restricted since late September after a deep depression dumped intense rain across south Odisha and triggered slope collapses, rockfalls and the washout of a guard wall near Andharikot.
Singh told officers to complete emergency protection work at once. Loose boulders, soft soil and other material hanging in a dangerous condition on the hill face must be removed immediately. Until those hazards are cleared and basic safety arrangements are in place, vehicles will not be allowed through the affected zone.
At the second landslide site, the plan is more measured than a full reopening. Officials will create a controlled single-lane passage and take up immediate road-safety works. About 400 metres of taper will be provided before and after the damaged stretch so drivers can merge and exit the single lane without sudden surprises. Singh was explicit: traffic will resume only after the safety setup is complete — not before.
The government is not treating this as a one-off rain cut. An IIT technical team will carry out a detailed site investigation at km 86.380 and km 86.675, identify why the slopes failed and recommend permanent remedies. Restoration, slope protection and any new construction will follow that report, not a rushed patch-up.
The visit underlines how familiar — and costly — this corridor has become. Kalinga Ghat has suffered repeated landslides, including a major failure in September 2025 that shut the highway for weeks and left hanging boulders as a lingering worry. This year’s rains again exposed weak slopes, unfinished protection works and the risk of driving a mountain road after cloudbursts.
Singh asked officers to finish every emergency task on a war footing, keeping both safety and eventual ease of travel in view. Kandhamal Collector Bedabhushan, the Additional Collector of Bhanjanagar, the Chief Engineer (National Highways)-I, the Chief Construction Engineer of the Southern Circle at Berhampur, the Superintending Engineer of the Phulbani National Highway Division and other officials accompanied him.
For now, the message from the ghat is simple. The road will open when it is safe — and the search for a lasting answer starts with the rocks still waiting to fall.
