A key highway connecting Jodhpur to Rohat and onward to Jalore, running through Rajasthan's Pali district, has turned into a nightmare stretch for drivers this monsoon season. Local residents now openly call the route a death zone after deep, dangerous potholes appeared virtually everywhere along the way, making travel a genuine risk to life the moment the rains set in.
Rainwater hides the depth of the craters
People who use this road daily say that during dry weather, drivers can somehow spot and dodge the potholes. The real trouble begins the moment it rains. Once these deep craters fill with water, their depth becomes impossible to judge from behind the wheel. Vehicles moving at speed suddenly drop into these hidden potholes and lose balance instantly. As a result, motorcyclists are falling and getting hurt on this stretch almost every day, while larger vehicles have been overturning in serious accidents. The impact is severe enough to loosen vehicle parts, and drivers say long journeys on this road are even taking a toll on their spines.
A collapsed drainage system adds to the danger
Potholes are not the only problem. The drainage system along this highway has broken down almost entirely. Several stretches have no drainage arrangement at all, so rainwater simply flows straight across the road surface in a fast, forceful current. During peak monsoon flow, vehicles attempting to cross these points have come dangerously close to being swept away, and there have already been frightening past incidents of vehicles being carried off by the rushing water. Despite this history, the administration has not installed any barricading or warning boards at these danger points to alert commuters in advance.
Public anger forced the shutdown of two toll plazas
The scale of official neglect is visible in another episode from this very road. Even with the highway in this dilapidated state, two separate toll plazas were being run on the stretch, with toll collection continuing uninterrupted. Angered by paying tolls on a road in such poor condition, local residents and drivers took to the streets in an aggressive protest. Faced with mounting public pressure, the administration was eventually forced to shut down both toll plazas. Today, the toll gate structures still stand there like abandoned ruins, but no responsible department has taken up the job of actually repairing the road itself.
Bigger trouble expected as monsoon intensifies
According to the weather department, the monsoon is set to become even more active in the coming days, meaning the entire stretch could go completely underwater during spells of heavy rain. Travelling on this highway without any repair work being carried out is effectively inviting a major accident. Locals are asking a pointed question: when large budgets are sanctioned every year for the development of roads in the region, why has construction work on this crucial highway remained stalled? Residents want to know whether the administration plans to keep sitting idle until a major loss of life finally forces it to act.
