Despite six years having passed since the work started, the broadening work of the National Highway (NH-58) -39 Km stretch between Haridwar and Dehradun is still far from complete.
The commuters at the receiving end of the long-dragging project are holding the lackadaisical attitude of the local officials and of the company entrusted with the project responsible for the snail’s pace with which the work has been progressing.
Besides, the inordinate delay involving the asset distribution between Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand is making the work drag in some stretches with works remaining stuck sans clearance from the UP irrigation department. Importantly, over 800 people have lost their lives in road accidents occurring on the particular highway in the past few years.
Sources from the SSP office say that over the past four years, 1534 road accidents have been recorded on this National Highway where the broadening work has been going on for the past few years. Since 2014, 843 people have died in road accidents and 1472 have received serious injuries, add the sources.
Notably, in 2010, with the sanctioned budget of Rs 300 crores, the broadening work of the Haridwar -Doon National Highway was started. But on the account of the tardy progress and rising cost of materials, the company Era Infra tasked with the project showed its incapacity to continue in 2016 because of funds problem coming in the way. The work slated to be completed in 2015 was postponed twice. The project again jumped the revised deadline - February 2017- to the woe of the commuters.
A senior police officer said that the broadening work of NH 58 had started during the Kumbh Mela 2010 with the instruction to have the work completed before Ardh Kumbh Mela 2015. “The problem related to land acquisition and lack of clearance from the UP departments are making the work drag on for years,” he added.
Resenting the delay, the commuters say that there is hardly any arrangement of street lighting. “Besides, compounding our woes, drums have been put by way of dividers on the highway. The drums not visible in the night, the vehicles might any time ram into them, resulting in fatal accidents. The stretch from Motichoor to Nepali Farm is all the more vulnerable during the night hours,” said a commuter who uses this stretch per force almost daily.
Another said that Singh Dwar crossing is witnessing huge traffic pileup throughout the day while the condition is the same in Shankaracharya Chownk, Dudadhari Chownk, Kali Mata tri-junction Bahadarabad, COER College tri-junction and Tircha pul Dhanori. “We wonder whether our ordeal on this road would ever end,” he grumbled.
Quizzed by The Pioneer over the delay, causing loss of lives and daily hardships for the commuters, the project director state highway authority Pradeep Gosain said, “The highway broadening work is going on in full swing. We have asked the workers to complete those patches of the road where the traffic movement is maximum so that there is minimum disturbance to the commuters.”