Case filed against National Highway Infrastructure and Development Corporation Ltd. for not putting up traffic signs

GUWAHATI: The Jorhat District Administration has lodged an FIR against the National Highway Infrastructure and Development Corporation Ltd. (NHIDCL) on the charge of not erecting traffic signs at stretches of roads under construction.

On Wednesday, an ONGC official died in an accident near Teok. According to sources, the officer could not make out the road under construction as no signboard was put up at the stretch of the National Highway-37. He fell on an under-construction bridge with the car, as there was no traffic signboard.

The incident made Additional Deputy Commissioner Damodar Barman file a case (93/2023) at Teok Police Station against NHIDCL. An investigation is going on to find out whose negligence led to the fatal accident. The district administration, time and again, reminded the NHIDCL to put up signboards at sites where road construction goes on.

The work on the Jorhat-Jhanji-Demow stretch of the National Highway has been going on since 2015 but has not yet been completed, despite repeated assurances by Union Road Transport and Highway Minister Nitin Gadkari, former Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, and Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to complete the work.

Because the construction companies do not make the service roads motorable, each spell of rain leads to waterlogging and accidents. It is mandatory for the construction companies to maintain the service roads along with the construction work. However, the NHIDCL and the construction companies pay little attention to the motorability of the service roads.

According to official sources, traffic signs are silent speakers, preventing drivers and pedestrians from taking fatal risks on the road. Be it the state PWD or the NHIDCL, they pay little attention to the role of traffic signs. And this leads to accidents as often as not. PWD and NHIDCL often identify some accident-prone road stretches as ‘black spots, but they seldom provide any remedies. Accidents in the state are an everyday affair. In 2022, the state witnessed as many as 6,049 accident cases that claimed 2,440 lives, besides injuries to thousands.

The ongoing Nagoan-Dibrugarh four-lane construction work of the National Highway started in 2014 but has not yet been completed at many stretches, mainly due to negligence on the part of the construction companies and NHIDCL.

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