Now, green belt along expressways to check encroachment
MEERUT : Growing encroachments on both sides of expressways and highways are turning out to be a major cause of concern for officials of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), for they jeopardize the safety of commuters. To check this nuisance, the NHAI has directed development authorities to develop a 100-metre green belt on both sides of expressways.
The Delhi- Meerut expressway is expected to be operational from end of February 2021 while Eastern Peripheral Expressway is already operational.
Mudit Garg, project director of DME, candidly admitted that encroachments, including illegal parking of vehicles, hoardings and advertisements, roadside establishments like ‘ dhabas’, buildings, factories and restaurants and display of posters on underpass and pavements were security hazards.
Garg said that to solve this problem, the NHAI had come up with the plan of developing 100metre green belt on both sides of the DME and Eastern Peripheral Expressway, which starts from Kundali of Haryana and connects to Baghpat, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad, Palwal and other cities of UP and Haryana.
“We (NHAI) would send letters to development authorities in Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Noida and Haryana to ensure that a green belt should be developed on both sides of these expressways,” said Garg and added that the authorities had also been asked to develop service road along with green belt and to allow access to expressways only through service roads.
Garg explained that illegal establishments and hoardings came up on either side of an expressway soon after its completion and resorted to illegal access to the e-way in violation of rules. The NHAI often issues appeal to all roadside establishments like ‘dhabas’, buildings, factories and restaurants to close the illegal access and apply for legal access. Similarly, officials also direct people to remove all the hoardings and advertisements distracting the attention of drivers.
Garg explained that police and Nagar Nigam help was required to curb such illegal activities. “Our work is to maintain the expressway but most of our team’s time gets wasted in checking such illegal activities”, said Garg who claimed that development of green belt on both sides would help in preventing encroachment.“Setting up of illegal establishments is a punishable offence under Control of National Highways (Land and Traffic) Act, 2002,” he said.