Same Mud, Different Response: NH-108B Finally Gets Noticed
Jul 22, 2026
Agartala, Jul 22: A tanker truck and a minister's official car, stuck together in the same patch of mud near Subalsingh on Tuesday, made for a rare shared moment on the Agartala Khowai highway, one that, according to residents, ordinary commuters have experienced alone and unremarked for days. Photographs from the spot showed security personnel pushing Tripura Minister Tinku Roy's stranded vehicle through the mud while a fuel tanker sat stuck just a few feet away on the same stretch of NH-108B. Eyewitnesses said security personnel first tried pushing the car forward before reversing it out. The minister was travelling from Khowai to Agartala at the time.
For commuters on this stretch, however, such scenes are far from rare. Bike riders, truck drivers and daily passengers have been posting near identical images of vehicles trapped in the same mud for several days, and the highway's disrepair had already been reported by local media. Residents of Khowai and Dhalai districts had taken to social media describing the Subalsingh stretch as a "death trap," and a TIPRA Motha MLA from the area had already raised the issue with the government before the minister's car got stuck. None of that, commuters point out, drew an official response at the time.
In fact, Chief Minister Manik Saha had, only days before the incident, written to the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways flagging the poor state of NH-208 and NH-108B and seeking urgent deployment of a highway team to inspect the affected stretches, a step that shows the government was already aware of the problem through its own channels well before Tuesday, even as the hardship on the ground continued without acknowledgement reaching the public.
It was only once the minister's own vehicle got stuck that the BJP Tripura Pradesh's newly appointed general secretary and IT Cell in-charge, Chandan Debnath, issued a detailed statement. "Simply laying tar does not make a national highway durable in the long run, it requires a strong foundation, a proper drainage system, slope protection and adherence to engineering standards," Debnath said, adding, "The most important thing is that the government is not ignoring the problem once it has come to light."
The statement noted the highway's modernisation project began with a foundation stone laid on October 27, 2020, and was expanded in 2023. Yet more than three years since work began, a nearly 16-km stretch remains riddled with potholes, and vehicle owners have reported repeated damage to engines and suspension systems, with buses, ambulances and two-wheelers all at heightened risk, particularly through the monsoon. Residents have also questioned whether the highway's alignment, said to still follow an older, winding route, meets the standard expected of a national highway.
Meanwhile, the coincidence of a tanker and a minister's car sharing the same stretch of mud, followed within hours by an official clarification that had eluded ordinary commuters for days, and arriving even after the Chief Minister's own written appeal to the Centre, drew pointed criticism from opposition quarters and social media users, who said it was the identity of who got stuck, not the state of the road, that finally prompted a response.
