No clean toilets for motorists as hotels shut
Motorists travelling with special permissions during the lockdown have reported a major issue for road travel: Shortage of clean restrooms due to hotels along the highway being shut during lockdown.
Usually, national highways are dotted with brightly-lit restaurants and hotels, but these are now closed because of the lockdown. Without these establishments, travellers are finding few clean restrooms and no food is available on long routes.
“It took us almost seven hours to reach Vadodara from Mumbai and on the entire route, we only managed to find a restroom once,” said Vadodara resident, 65-year-old Bhavna Vashi, who returned home in a private vehicle last week after being stuck in
Mumbai for the past two months.
“While the drive was quicker than usual because of fewer vehicles on the highway, we could not find a single restaurant open and the only restroom we found was close to a police check point, almost four hours into the drive,” she said.
While Gujarat is still open to travel passes, some states, like Karnataka, have strict border entry rules which has meant almost no vehicles ply these routes. Consequently, hotels on these highways are shut.
Last weekend, 55-year-old Sanjay Mehta drove to the Karnataka border to pick up his two children, who study in Bengaluru and have been stuck in their hostel for the past two months. “My wife and I drove almost 500 kilometres and barely managed to find usable restrooms all the way,” said Mehta.
With no hotels open, Mehta and his wife drove for six hours straightbeforeparkingtheircar on a petrol pump’s premises to rest for a few hours.
Last week, state home minister Anil Deshmukh said Maharashtra Police had issued over 3.5 lakh e-travel passes for those engaged in essential services and those who need to travel due to an emergency.
Vasant Pandharkar, from National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), Kolhapur district, said authorities and highway police are no longer arranging amenities along highways.
“The number of migrants moving towards Karnataka through Maharashtra was huge between last week of March and end of April. That’s when we provided food, water as well as sanitation facilities close to all our check posts at toll nakas. Since this population has declined and almost vanished in the last few weeks, we haven’t made arrangements,” he said.