HC judge to take stock of toll plaza revamp
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Thursday directed the National Highway Authority Of India (NHAI) to improve services on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway and service lanes near the Sirhol toll plaza in Gurgaon at the earliest to ensure smooth flow of traffic.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Thursday directed the National Highway Authority Of India (NHAI) to improve services on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway and service lanes near the Sirhol toll plaza in Gurgaon at the earliest to ensure smooth flow of traffic.
Justice SK Mittal is also likely to visit the Sirhol toll plaza in a day or two to get a first-hand experience of the ground situation. This is the first time that a sitting judge will visit the troubled toll plaza. Earlier, a retired chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Mukul Mudgal, had visited the toll plaza on directions of the court on September 24 last year.
The division bench comprising justice SK Mittal and justice Amol Rattan Singh, while hearing a petition filed by the concessionaire, Delhi-Gurgaon Super Connectivity Limited (DGSCL), also directed all the parties concerned in the case to convene a meeting before the next date of hearing and inform the court about all developments.
A DGSCL spokesperson said in a written statement, “Today, the parties presented a report on the improvements made on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway to the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The court asked the parties to continue with the progress and directed them to continue to meet regularly to resolve issues. The parties would report further progress to the high court in the next hearing that has been fixed for February 19.”
During the hearing, Haryana government's counsel informed the court that NHAI was not taking the case seriously and there was a need for maintenance of road and service lanes near the toll plaza.
The Gurgaon police informed the court that senior authorities were conducting meetings at regular intervals to ponder over the issue and make the toll plaza less congested for smooth movement.
Speaking for the bench, justice SK Mittal said that he would himself visit the Sirhol toll plaza in a day or two to get a first-hand experience. He also cited an example where a critical patient could not reach hospital in time due to a traffic jam at the toll plaza.
However, justice Amol Rattan Singh asked the state government to also ease traffic snarls at the Karnal toll plaza where vehicles queue up to a distance of almost one kilometre at times.