Night blockades hassle passengers
HEAVY VEHICLES, INCLUDING PUBLIC TRANSPORT, WERE STOPPED FROM PLYING ON HIGHWAY FOR HOURS WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE
NEW DELHI/ KUMARHATTI: As the chilly winds made her hands tremble, a restless Meenakshi Dhiman wandered the streets of Kumarhatti in Solan district at 1.20am in the night in the search of a washroom. After a ten-minute search, the twomonth pregnant Dhiman decided to relieve herself in a local’s washroom that was left unlocked.
“I felt like a burglar when I used someone’s washroom without permission. But what is a pregnant woman who has been waiting in a stationary bus for over an hour suppose to do,” Dhiman said.
Dhiman, who was travelling alone, was one of the hundred passengers who were stranded in the quaint town situated in Himalayan foothills after heavy vehicles were stopped on the Shimlakalka road for at least three hours on the intervening night of October 31 and November 1.
“The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) is building an overbridge besides road-widening work on the Shimla-kalka highway and heavy vehicles, including public transport buses, have been stopped from plying on that road,” a Himachal Road Transport Corporation(hrtc) driver said. Neither the passengers nor the HRTC staff were informed in advance about the blockade that was put up at night for carrying out the construction activity, he added. “A long traffic jam on the Shimla road was an everyday affair in the daytime, but now buses are being stopped for hours at night as well. A few days ago, we were stuck at Kumarhatti for around six hours,” another driver said.
HRTC managing director Yunus Khan said the corporation had not received any advisory in this regard from the administration. “We usually make alternate measures to avoid such inconvenience to passengers, but we were not informed about the blockade. We will take up the matter with the authorities and ask for a detailed report,” Khan told HT. While HRTC claimed it wasn’t taken in the loop regarding the work on the expressway, other state agencies passed the buck on the matter.
Principal secretary (public works, transport, information technology), Jagdish Chander said, “We will take up the matter with NHAI and ensure that such incident is not repeated. The local administration should have been proactive as disseminating information on traffic movement is their responsibility.”
Solan DC KC Chaman blamed NHAI for the lapse and said, “We weren’t sent an intimation about the blockade. Such incidents have taken place in past, but the NHAI doesn’t always inform us about such traffic restrictions.”