E-Paper
E-way needs trauma hospital, 120 CCTV’s and info boards: Pune civil society
These critical views on management of the high-speed corridor come in the wake of the recent demise of prominent political leader Vinayak Mete
Civil society members in Pune have listed out factors including: criminal negligence on the part of the contractor and the MSRDC, which has not provided a trauma centre and emergency hospital near Khalapur; non-display of emergency numbers on information boards; and lack of CCTV for monitoring the real-time situation in the age of electronic surveillance as responsible for poor management of the Mumbai-Pune express highway despite clocking annual revenues of nearly ₹1,000 crore. These deeply critical views on management of the high-speed corridor come in the wake of the recent demise of prominent political leader and former MLC, Vinayak Mete, in an accident on the expressway.
Prominent road safety activist, Vivek Velankar - who has been at the forefront of pointing out loopholes in the maintenance, safety and upkeep of the highway – pointed out that only eight to 10 CCTV cameras have been installed as against the proposed 150 CCTV cameras to monitor the highway. “During the age of electronic surveillance, it is not difficult to install 150 CCTV cameras which are needed. There is complete chaos and there is no guarantee of life if one is on the expressway. Despite earnings of nearly ₹1,000 crore, the necessary spending on accident safety and prevention infrastructure is not being done. Both the contractor and the MSRDC are responsible for the current situation on the e-way and have to be made accountable for their criminal negligence. The police stand near the toll booths like gangs and are busy in their hafta collection drive while the entire traffic management has been thrown out-of-gear. Discussion on e-way safety takes place only when a celebrity passes away and ends on a cold note with no visible change on-the-ground,” Velankar said.
Former chief commissioner of income tax Akramul Jabbar Khan said, “An annual performance appraisal report on the entire expressway in terms of road safety and accidents must be submitted to the government. Top experts must be roped in and critical suggestions must be welcomed for improvement. It is only by accepting mistakes and loopholes that we can move forward. A dedicated portion of revenue earnings must be ploughed back into putting in place world-class mechanisms for monitoring highway health which will reduce accidents and fatalities in the long run.”
The 94 km e-way is one of the busiest arterial corridors and currently handles an average of around 750,000 vehicles per day. According to records available with the highway safety patrol, numerous accidents, fatalities and traffic jams occur regularly on the e-way, with the major causes having found to be speeding, overloaded vehicles, unauthorised halts and non-compliance with traffic rules and lane discipline.
Celebrities who died or met with accidents on the e-way
Prominent Marathi actress, Bhakti Barve Inamdar, died in an accident on the Mumbai-Pune e-way in 2001.
Prominent Marathi film and television actors Anand Abhyankar, 50, and Akshay Pendse, 33, and a child were killed when their car met with an accident on the Mumbai-Pune e-way in 2012.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and sitting Ahmednagar MLA Sangram Jagtap, 37, had a narrow escape during an accident involving his car and a bus on the Pune-Mumbai e-way in May 2022.
