Taking cognisance of the rising incidents of accidents from the potholed roads and lackdiasicial attitude of the NHAI officials in repairing the roads, the District Magistrate of Haridwar has cautioned the officials to be ready for penal action if any accident is reported on account of potholes left unpatched on the national highway. He has also appealed to the public to ask for compensation in hit and run cases.
In the district level meeting on road safety, the Haridwar DM Deepak Rawat said, “If any accident occurs on national highway, lodge an FIR against NHAI liasoning officer Atul Sharma.” In an appeal to the people of the district, Deepak Rawat said, if the accused goes absconding after hitting on the national highway then the family members of the dead or injured victims can fill up a form and ask for compensation under ‘Toshan Nidhi Yojana’. Under this scheme the family members of the relatives of the accident victims are entitled to get Rs 25,000 for a relative killed in mishap and Rs 12,500 in case a relative is injured in the accident.
When asked, the former environmental engineering professor of Roorkee University (now IIT) and Asian Institute of Technology Bangkok, Professor D S Bhargava said, “The traffic jam occurs mainly when small cars and bikers in haste come in haphazard manner and queue up on the wrong side of the road. Such defaulters must be heavily penalised.”
The Haridwar Senior Superintendent of police, Krishna Kumar VK said, “The talks are on with the IIT team to work out a fool proof system for tackling the city’s traffic problem and very soon, the solutions shall be sorted out.”