Gzb: Civic body starts taking over 58 defunct traffic signals, legal battle continues in SC

According to the civic officials, the firm entered into a contract for installation of signals with the corporation in May 2017. Later, the officials said that a committee of the corporation had refused to extend the contract.

Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation on Tuesday said that they had started a process to take over nearly 58 defunct traffic signals across the city and get these restored by the end of the week. The civic officials said that the move was required after they refused to extend the contract of a firm called Shiv Shakti Dream Homes Pvt Ltd, a private firm who had erected these signals on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis.

Traffic police managing traffic at the Ghaziabad Hapur Crossing near kavi nagar in Ghaziabad on Monday. (SAKIB ALI/HT PHOTO)

The officials of the corporation said that they had also registered an FIR against the members of the firm after they allegedly snapped the cables of functional traffic signals on Sunday.

The FIR was registered under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 341 (wrongful restraint), 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others), 186 (voluntarily obstructing any public servant in the discharge of his public functions) and provisions of Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, at Sihani Gate police station. The FIR names Harish Sharma, Gunjan Sharma, Kapil Mohan and Tarun Sharma from the firm.

According to the civic officials, the firm entered into a contract for installation of signals with the corporation in May 2017. Later, the officials said that a committee of the corporation had refused to extend the contract.

“The matter moved to the high court and we maintained that we are bringing in the Integrated Traffic Management System (ITMS), hence we are not renewing the contract. We got relief in March this year. The firm in lieu of erecting signals was given advertising rights on unipoles. We found that they were putting up advertising on both sides of the unipole instead of one side. Besides, they had also stopped giving us revenue. So, the contract was not extended,” said Vikramaditya Malik, municipal commissioner.

Corporation officials said that they took action and cut off 51 of 58 unipoles, having advertisements by the firm, across the city on Saturday night after a roadshow by Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended.

“The next day, the firm disconnected the connections of traffic signals and jeopardised traffic movement. Now, we have started the process of taking over the traffic signals. We will get these rectified at our own cost and recover the cost from the private firm. There is a petition going on in the matter in the Supreme Court,” Malik added.

Tarun Sharma, one of those named in the FIR, said that he and Gunjan did not have any official position in the firm and they have been wrongly named.

“Two people named in the FIR do not have any official position in the firm. The entire issue happened because people in high political ranks got our contract scrapped on frivolous pretexts in order to facilitate another advertising firm. The scrapping of our contract has the backing of politicians. Our firm was given NOCs by the traffic police several times. Still, the corporation claimed that our work was not satisfactory. They cut off our advertising unipoles suddenly late on Saturday night and blamed us for defunct traffic signals. We did not snap any cables or spoil any traffic signals,” said Harish Sharma, director of Shiv Shakti Dream Homes Pvt Ltd.

Sharma said that they went to high court last year and the corporation withdrew their letter which had scrapped the contract last year.

“We continued to operate. Then they issued a 16-point letter to us in a bid to scrap our contract and the high court did not grant them relief. Against this they have moved Supreme Court. In the meantime, the corporation floated the tender for ITMS project and they included 41 of 58 signals allotted to us in the project. We again went to high court but we did not get relief. Now, we have intervened in the corporation’s petition pending with the Supreme Court and we will wait for the orders,” Sharma added.

The officials of the traffic police said that they do not operate the signals and the responsibility of operation and maintenance is done by the firm.

“We have deployed traffic personnel to man the intersections since the signals across 58 locations are defunct. Our personnel are manning intersections from 7am to 10pm and will continue to do so till the signals are restored and made functional,” said Virendra Singh, additional DCP (traffic).