By Express News Service – KOCHI

 NHAI unwilling to take the lead in removing encroachers on its service roads                                 along   Edappally-Aroor NH Bypass

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is on a collision course with the district administration over removing encroachers from the service roads of the Edappally-Aroor NH Bypass.

The NHAI, which owns the stretch and collects hefty toll from motorists using the bypass, is unwilling to take the lead in removing vendors, encroachers and vehicles parked haphazardly on service roads. As a result, accidents and brawls between motorists and encroachers are becoming common on the stretches.

NHAI Kochi project director C.T. Abraham said it was up to the District Collector to initiate action. “The Collector is armed with magisterial powers and chairs the district-level Road Safety Committee. He can also take action based on court orders which permit a clampdown against encroachers. He can even direct the police to charge rule violators with causing public nuisance. He must form a committee comprising officials of various departments and launch an intensive anti-encroachment drive,” Mr. Abraham said.

Meanwhile, District Collector P.I. Sheikh Pareeth said the NHAI project director had wide-ranging quasi-judicial powers, using which he could remove encroachers and take action against illegal parking.

“The NHAI owns the highway and service roads and hence is its custodian,” Mr. Pareeth said.

On the NHAI’s complaint that the road safety committee not taking action against rule violators, the Collector said the NHAI was yet to present the matter before the committee despite encroachers thriving along the crucial and busy corridor. “We will assign police protection if the NHAI is willing to take the lead in removing encroachers,” he said.

The traffic police have for years been complaining that the NHAI was not cooperating with it in ensuring safe movement of vehicles and pedestrians along the bypass and its service roads. “We shot off numerous letters to the NHAI, demanding eviction of encroachers and augmenting safety measures along the 16-km stretch. The attitude of motorists who think that service roads are meant for parking has worsened the plight of road users,” said a senior traffic police officer.

The NHAI’s unwillingness to lead or coordinate the enforcement drive and its dissonance with otheragencies have resulted in the bypass and service roads becoming a haven for rule violators. A long-pending suggestion to limit parking to light vehicles along one side of the service road has also fallen on deaf ears.

As a result, encroachers have even gone to the extent of adding road shoulders to their property, by tying ropes up to 10 metres into service roads and treating the NHAI-owned area as their own, especially in front of a shopping mall at Vyttila.

Sources said frequent encroachments into service roads could be checked if the tarred surface was widened from 5.5 metres to seven metres.

“Service roads have ample width in most portions and tarring road shoulders will ensure smooth two-way traffic when traffic curbs are introduced as part of proposed flyovers at four junctions on the bypass. A proposal in this regard is pending with the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways for many years,” sources said.

About two months ago, the district administration had threatened to slap criminal action against the NHAI for the shabby upkeep of the bypass. While the NHAI filled a few potholes at Vyttila Junction a week ago, nothing was done to resurface the potholed free-left turn towards mobility hub and Tripunithura. This has forced the police to issue a notice to the NHAI demanding urgent filling of all potholes on the bypass.

Source-http://www.thehindu.com

With Union minister for road transport and highways Oscar Fernandes himself working on a solution to ease traffic congestion on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, we think that something has finally been achieved after 50 editions of HT’s “Taking a Toll” campaign and it is time to take the endeavour to the next level.

As the minister visited the problem areas on the expressway and interacted with the people, the first-hand experience of people’s frustration and ire moved him to announce the proposal for an elevated bridge at Hero Honda Chowk.

“The flyover will cost nearly `100 crore and take 18 months to construct, but it will be a permanent solution that will go a long way in easing the traffic flow on this stretch of National Highway-8. We will also plead with the court for an early resolution to the expressway issue,” Fernandes had told HT after a meeting with Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, as the two met at Transport Bhawan, New Delhi, on Wednesday.

For the people

HT had turned its attention to the expressway after a public outcry over the project that had originally been conceived to catapult Gurgaon to the league of global business cities, but has eventually become a thorn in the side of residents.

HT took up cudgels on behalf of hapless people reeling under inordinate traffic holdups at the Sirhaul and Kherki Daula toll plazas and the lack of basic amenities that cost people their lives.

Through its activism, HT succeeded in lifting the morale of people who had lost all hope for anything to change with the expressway. The people’s movement in Gurgaon against the toll plazas and other issues was reactivated.

“In recent times, HT’s campaign against the expressway problems and the toll plazas is an example for other media houses to emulate. HT’s campaign has empowered us and the extensive coverage that included inside stories like the CAG’s censure of the project has not just informed us but also recharged us to carry on our struggle,” said Attar Singh Sandhu, general secretary of Toll Hatao Sangharsh Samiti, a citizens’ pressure group fighting for the removal of toll.

The issues that were taken up ranged from traffic jams that amounted to lost opportunities and salary cuts for commuters to technical matters like inherent design faults.

HT also traversed the psychological space of the daily victims of the expressway. How the expressway and the toll plazas are not just a physical, but also psychological barriers; how they have led to deteriorating mental health of the people; how efficiencies have dropped and how because of the toll plazas several industrial houses decided to shift from Gurgaon.

Journalistic activism

On its half-a-hundred-long journey, HT tried to leave no stone unturned, no door un-knocked; HT shook up all the trees to thrash out a panacea for a city dying under the pressure of its own traffic. From the chief minister of Haryana to the Union ministry of road transport and highways, from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to the negligent concessionaire DGSCL, HT barked at all the trees.

The problems were approached surgically for an acute and correct analysis; rather than pontification, people were involved to voice their concerns and responsibilities were fixed unfazed.

HT roped in experts from all walks of life to come up with an informed opinion rather than just conjecture and hollow reportage.

These people of intellect and experience not just showed the way to authentic information and analysis, but also came up with solutions and suggestions that shaped public opinion.

Impact

From otherwise-stolid local, state and national authorities, people started getting response. The joint commissioner of police (traffic) issued public notices to the agencies concerned; the NHAI sloughed off tardiness and took penal action against the concessionaire for having left the expressway to rot.

The agency even took matters in its own hands and ordered re-carpeting of service roads of the expressway, censuring DGSCL and charging the expenses on the company with a 15% surcharge.

A stretch of service road on the Delhi side was completed; the NHAI and the Haryana Urban Development Authority pooled in money for a foot-overbridge (FOB) at Hero Honda Chowk; the two agencies also finalised the construction of an FOB between Signature Tower and Iffco Chowk.

Looking forward

HT has now decided to expand its horizons. Yet again, on popular demand, HT wants to go hyper-local and look at the daily traffic mess that the internal traffic system of the city is in. This is an extension of our enterprise to make a difference to daily living in Gurgaon.

One of our experts Rohit Baluja, president of the Institute of Road Traffic Education, New Delhi, rightly pointed out, “Local authorities of Gurgaon found it easy to go with the development that was triggered with the expressway despite knowing that the national highway was not meant for local traffic and did not develop the internal road and traffic system properly.”

Source-http://www.hindustantimes.com/

PTI