The residents of Adityapur have objected to the State Road Construction Department’s move for toll collection on the Tata-Kandra Road. The road construction department’s chief engineer’s office at Ranchi had on August 29 floated tenders for collecting toll from the Tata-Kandra Road. The tender is scheduled to be opened on Wednesday. The department has floated the tender for two years and the estimated lowest earnest bid is Rs 15.52 crore.
People are protesting as the State Road Construction Department is floating the tender even as the work of the service lanes on either side of the 15.3 kilometres Tata-Kandra Road is incomplete. The Tata-Kandra Road linking Jamshedpur with the Adityapur industrial area in Seraikela-Kharsawan district is a four-lane. Notably, over 2,000 heavy vehicles, including trailers, vans and other mode of vehicles every day-round-the-clock to Kandra-Tata four lane which is the artery of Adityapur industrial hub, linking to steel city of Jamshedpur on the one hand and NH-33 on the other hand through the Kandra-Chandil road.
Notably, the work of Tata-Kandra Road’s main carriage lane is complete, but due to incompletion of the service lanes, the project is being considered as incomplete. After deadline of the Tata-Kandra Road project was over April 20 last year, Jharkhand Accelerated Road Development Company limited (JARDCl) had expedited the construction of service lane, which is still going on.
A construction agency JARDCl has set up the four-lane project at the cost of Rs 185 crores. The work of service lane is incomplete near Ghora Baba Temple, near Tayo limited. After the tender was floated for toll collection from the Tata-Kandra Road in August last, representatives of various organisations and prominent residents of Adityapur had raised objection over the toll collection.
“It is unfair as the Road Construction department has not yet completed the service lanes, but also has built the service-lane in a haste. From the manner the service lanes have been built, it seems that the road construction department is in no way concerned with the people’s convenience and concerned about the heavy commercial vehicles only,” said Om Prakash, president of Jan Kalyan Morcha (JKM).
Om Prakash said that they have submitted a memorandum to the Seraikela-Kharsawan deputy commissioner, Hansraj Singh today and also to the road construction department, expressing the concern as the step of toll collection without completing the service lane will give rise to road mishap.
Chief engineer, Road Construction department, Ranchi, Mahesh Prasad Chowdhury confirmed that the tender for toll collection from the Tata-Kandra Road will open on Wednesday. Chowdhury, however, added that he would discuss the matter with the authorities concerned and take a decision to this effect soon.
About 50,000 people live in Gamharia in the adjoining Seraikela-Kharsawan district, and 10 per cent of this population has to negotiate through the existing Adityapur-Kandra road to reach either upto Adityapur industrial units or to the steel city.
Similarly, a large number of people living in Adityapur and Jamshedpur also have to go upto Gamharia for working in industrial units located along the Adityapur-Kandra road regularly.