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/

Though the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) diluted eligibility norms for the contract for toll collection and maintenance of the Bandra-Worli sea link, only three of the five companies that submitted proposals have qualified.

The MSRDC will now invite price bids from the three shortlisted firms, which includes the incumbent toll collection company Mumbai Entry Point Limited (MEPL). MEPL is owned by Jayant Mhaiskar, brother of Virendra Mhaiskar, the promoter of IRB Infrastructure, and has been collecting toll on the sea link since it was opened to traffic in 2009.

“We will float request for proposals by next week and expect to have the responses in by the end of this month. We think the competition would be good this time. Representatives of the three companies have met us and it seems that all are keen on submitting their bids,” said a senior MSRDC official.

SMS Infrastructure Limited, Konark Infrastructure, IRB Infrastructure, MEPL and Reliance ADAG had in June submitted proposals after the agency relaxed the eligibility criteria.

“The companies that did not qualify had submitted their bids in a consortium with another company. We had said that the bids should be by individual entities. Two companies failed to match the criteria for the minimum turnover on their own,” the official said.When the MSRDC floated tenders for the sea link toll and maintenance contract as per the original norms, only two firms — Konark Infrastructure and MEPL — had submitted bids. Ultimately, only MEPL could qualify and MSRDC had to call for bids again.

Source-http://www.indianexpress.com

Smart tags and cards have been a puzzle for commuters since the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway was inaugurated. While many daily commuters claim that they are not even if smart tags are still in use, others complain the limited validity of recharge on smart cards makes its usage cumbersome.

“I have no information about a smart card being issued nowadays and have not even seen any of my friends, who regularly travel between Delhi and Gurgaon, using it. These cards have not been endorsed properly and it seems they don’t want us to use the cards at all”, said Vivek Kamboj, an environmentalist and a resident of Gurgaon.

After the Comptroller and Auditor General’s performance audit of the Gurgaon Expressway in 2008, a specially constituted panel of parliamentarians had taken up the issue.

It had recommended that the NHAI should have a mechanism to monitor the toll plazas with a view to prevent putting the users through unnecessary harassment by way of illegal and unscrupulous methods of toll collection. The committee’s report stated that it understood that the renewal of monthly tags, issued by the concessionaire, is inconvenient to the users.

The committee therefore recommended that these tags be converted into smart cards and can follow the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) smart cards pattern which is renewed after exhausting the amount.

According to information revealed by an RTI, the NHAI observed that when it came to concession for local traffic, there was a lapse of balance amount after its expiry within a month in various cases.

The NHAI further directed the concessionaire to take immediate steps so that no balanced amount lapsed from the card or tag issued to the local traffic from March 2010 onwards. An independent consultant later reported to the NHAI that the concessionaire could not be penalized for lapse in the balance amount, as the clause was not a part of the agreement.

The same consultant in 2011 had reviewed DGSCL’s annual report on the working of toll collecting system and suggested that lapse in balance of discount schemes needed to be reviewed.

After protests on the imposition of toll, the concessionaire introduced tags at discounted rate in 2008. This was later improvised to smart cards in 2012, which the DGSCL, after court directives, is now pushing for. However, the smart cards, though issued free of cost unlike the tags, still carry a validity expiry period of one month if not used adequately. Though the concessionaire told HT that there were cards for which there is no validity of recharge and the balance could be carried forward, but the cards had no discount rates.

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

Sources said the identified areas of cooperation include sharing best practices in road and bridge building technologies, policies, intelligent traffic system besides road-related issues. China has taken huge strides in building world class highways, and has built over 60,000 km of expressways. Plans are afoot to build around 18,000 km of expressways in India.

Around half-a-dozen road projects are being built with participation of Chinese companies. Sources said all these projects were bagged by private entities in which Chinese firms had a share.

Sources said no project has been identified that can be taken up under this cooperation. “This is just a beginning. As we progress, projects will be identified,” the official said.

The other major area of cooperation will in the electronic mode of collecting toll (ETC). China is way ahead of India in this sector. India also plans to bring all toll plazas on national highways under ETC so that people can pass through all plazas using a single smart card.

India and China will also cooperate in the field of intelligent traffic system, vehicle specifications and their certification. While India is likely to benefit from Chinese sharing of information and knowledge, China will learn from India’s success in implementing public-private-partnership projects.

Last year, former highways minister C P Joshi had reached out to Chinese infrastructure companies to invest in the road sector. He had said around 40 road construction projects were being undertaken by companies from China, Russia, the UK, Dubai, Singapore, Italy, South Korea, Malaysia, Spain and Thailand.

As per a Punjab and Haryana high court order of September last, it is mandatory to raise the boom barriers at Sirhaul toll plaza on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway once the traffic pile-up there goes beyond 400 metres.

To ensure this, the 400-metre mark has been painted red on the road on each side of the Sirhaul toll plaza.

This is one of several experiments initiated last year after the traffic situation went out of hands at the toll plaza.

Other experiments included making the toll plaza free for 15 days and creating extra toll booths in the form of split tolls.

While the 15-day free period has long been over and the split tolls are working — these have proved to be somewhat of a damp squib — motorists often complain that despite court orders the boom barriers are not raised when the pile-up gets as long as 400 metres, an allegation denied by the toll operator and expressway concessionaire Delhi-Gurgaon Super Connectivity Limited (DGSCL).

“I have no clue if they ever raise the toll boom barriers as I have been stuck in queues which have extended the 400-metre mark,” said Karuna Singh, a regular commuter on the expressway, which is a part of National Highway-8.

A spokesperson of the Delhi-Gurgaon Super Connectivity Limited, however, said that the red line is very much there and whenever it is breached, the traffic police ensure that the boom barriers are raised and commuters get a free passage across the toll plaza.

“Our personnel are always on alert, especially during the peak morning and evening hours and they raise the boom barriers when the pile-up touches the red mark,” said Bharti Arora, deputy commissioner of police, traffic, Gurgaon.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court, in its order last year, had mandated the Gurgaon traffic cops stationed at the toll plaza to open the boom barriers if the congestion breached the 400-metre red mark.

“That doesn’t absolve the operator from its responsibility of ensuring a free passage when required,” said Amberdeep Singh, another regular commuter on the expressway.

Commuter speak

Toll staff inconsistent in lifting boom barriers: Sanjay Gupta, west Delhi resident
I have to drive down to Gurgaon from my west Delhi residence 2-3 times a week. It takes me about 45 minutes to reach Sirhaul toll plaza on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway. However, quite a few times, it took me 30 to 40 minutes to cross the toll plaza, especially during the morning peak hours.

In the mornings, the traffic congestion is on the Delhi side and during the evening it is on the Gurgaon side, and you can witness the situation going out of control. You can’t do anything but helplessly wait for your ordeal to get over. The pile-ups, like on last Thursday, stretch for more than a kilometre.

I got stuck on the Rajokri flyover and had to drive continuously for about 40 minutes to be able to cross the toll. Since I use a smart tag to pay the toll, I couldn’t figure out if the expressway operator had raised the boom barriers as required once the traffic pile-up crosses the 400-metre mark.

There are two points I want to highlight here.

First, nobody knows who is responsible for implementing the court order of opening the toll barriers in case the pile-up crosses the 400-metre mark. The motorists who wait in the long queues cannot figure that out and they just want to come out of the hell somehow.

Second, it’s not just about the extra time that one loses waiting at the toll but the unpredictability of the jams makes it even more agonising.

One never knows what traffic situation he/she is going to face on reaching the toll plaza. I thank my stars sometimes when I get through the toll plaza within five minutes, but this never happens during the morning and evening rush hours.

E-way official version

DGSCL spokesperson
“In order to improve the traffic flow at the Sirhaul toll plaza, the Honb’le Punjab & Haryana high court had directed that a red line be drawn on the ground at a distance of 400 metres from the toll gates on either side.

Whenever the traffic was congested and exceeded the red line, the traffic police was directed to lift the boom barriers to ease the flow. We have followed the directives of the high court and the red line was painted on the ground in September.

Cameras have also been installed at that point so that the control room can see whenever the red line is breached and we open the boom barriers accordingly.

The Gurgaon traffic police are also present at the toll plaza and near the red lines. Whenever the length  of stationary traffic exceeds the red line, they lift the boom barriers to ensure that the traffic flow is eased.”

Surce_http://www.hindustantimes.com