Angry over lack of facilities, villagers force open toll plaza

Fed up with the poor condition of service roads and absence of foot-over bridges, hundreds of villagers living along the Gurgaon expressway forced open toll gates on Friday at the Kherki Daula plaza.

Fed up with the poor condition of service roads and absence of foot-over bridges, hundreds of villagers living along the Gurgaon expressway forced open toll gates on Friday at the Kherki Daula plaza.

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For about half-an-hour, motorists were allowed free passage and the demonstration led to a long traffic jam on the Jaipur-Gurgaon side.

Residents of Kherki Daula, Narsinghpur, Khandsa and other villages staged a protest at the toll plaza on Friday morning over potholed service lane near Narsinghpur. However, the group of 250-odd irate villagers began lifting boom barriers around 11.30am.

Nathu, sarpanch one of the affected villages, said that the service lane near Narsinghpur has been in a dilapidated condition for several months. The knee-deep craters turn into ponds after rainfall.

“Repeated requests for repair to the toll operator have failed to yield any result. The apathy has forced us to take action,” he added.

A Delhi Gurgaon Super Connectivity Limited (DGSCL) spokesperson admitted that the condition of the service road near Narsinghpur was poor.

“We have already kicked off repair work, starting from Hero Honda crossing. We will gradually move to other affected patches. We would start work on the service lane near Narsinghpur in a day or two,” he said, adding that about 500 vehicles crossed the toll without paying tax on Friday.