Encroachments removed along Mum-Agra highway

November 15, 2013

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Santosh Sonawane, TNN |

NASHIK: Food and tea stalls, and other illegal structures along the Mumbai-Agra highway were on Thursday removed by the civic body’s anti-encroachment department in co-ordination with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the city police.Hoardings put up by political parties were removed too.

Sources in PNG Tollways, the company asked to help with developing the road and collecting toll, said the drive anti-encroachment drive was conducted in two sessions on the stretch of the highway between Pathardi Phata and Dwarka.

Commissioner of Police Kulwant Kumar Sarngal said officials of the NHAI had approached him for protection during the encroachment drive. Police personnel were deployed for the purpose, he said.

Sources in PNG Tollways said the drive would be conducted more often as the encroachers tended to return to the place they were removed from.

A number of Chinese food and tea stalls are set up on the stretch between Pathardi Phata and Dwarka. Also, flower vendors at Mumbai Naka, most of who are children, obstruct the traffic that poses a danger for them too.

The vehicles parked at the garages on the highway’s service road also obstruct passage. Sources in PNG Tollways said an anti-encroachment drive concentrating on the garages would be conducted soon.

On being asked about a parking facility for auto rickshaws and taxis at Dwarka, officials from the PNG Tollways said they would reduce the size of the traffic islands at the junction to create a 1.5 metre-wide lane on the service road to accommodate these vehicles. The police and association of rickshaw and taxi drivers had suggested such an arrangement.

Encroachments on the median of the highway and on the service road that passes through the city have become a major issue as vehicles are seen moving at a slow pace in spite of the road’s widening.

Source-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com