manoj

Whether it’s drunken drivers, killer cabbies or speeding vehicles, driving on Delhi’s highways is becoming a dangerous exercise. As the recent maxi-cab serial killing spree shows, security has so far been unable to catch offenders on the highways.

Some police officers admit as much. HPS Virk, DCP Northern Range says that on certain stretches of the highway the security is so bad that the police can do little. ‘‘The stretches leading to Rohtak and Meerut are so bad even the police are afraid of going there and coming face to face with the local gangs of the area,’’ says Virk. He recalls an incident when his police patrol vehicle was stopped and searched by the members of a gang on the way to Khurja, some years ago and the police could not do anything about it. ‘‘There is a lack of coordination between the police. This has meant that highways leading to UP have remained a hotbed for crime.’’

But it isn’t just UP which is the problem. Figures by the National Crime Records Bureau show 133 cases of people being assaulted on the Delhi stretch of the highway this year. The crimes are often being carried out by autorickshaw drivers who rob passengers. Govind Aggarwal, superintendent of police, Ghaziabad says that this is a problem they have not been able to check. This is despite the presence of a police patrol vehicle patrolling every 4 kilometres on the highway.


Thanks to the lack of police action, commuters on the highway remain a worried lot. ‘‘I hold my breath every time I take the highway,’’ says Sanjeev Sharma, who has to travel to Meerut for work very weekend. But Sharma points out that it’s not just the high crime rate which bothers him. ‘‘I fear my car breaking down on the highway because I know if that happens it might take hours and hours for help to come.’’Responds Virk,‘‘At present there is no way to check if the patrol vehicle is actually patrolling. They may be are patrolling when they could be doing something else.’’

But being accosted by gangs is not the only problem. Experts say speeding and lack of traffic management is a huge problem that daily commuters face every day. Rohit Baluja, director of the Indian Institute of Road Traffic Education warns, ‘‘The problem lies in the fact that there is no co-ordination between National Highways Authority of India and the city planners. So the situation gets worse on stretches where the highway passes through a city. On the Delhi-Agra stretch for instance, the problem starts as soon as the highway reaches Faridabad.’’ He adds, ‘‘It then gets completely chaotic with truckers, bikers, rikshawpullers and cars all trying to negotiate their way through the city in a hurry.’’

According to the Haryana Highway Road Patrol and Safety, about 90 to 100 accidents occur on their national highways every month. On the Faridabad stretch of the highway more than 200 accidents have already happened so far this year. ‘‘Most of the accidents occur because the central verge is not visible during night time. They should be made visible. Roads should be clear of all obstacles. Temporary barriers should be removed. Parking vehicles on the highway also can lead to accidents,’’ says Arun Kumar Sharma, chief engineer, ministry of road transport and highway.

On the Ghaziabad stretch, experts say illegal cuts on the divider is the main cause of road accidents. ‘‘People have made illegal cuts for easy crossing onto the other side. We are now planning to install red lights there to ensure that the cuts are visible to the drivers at night,’’ says Aggarwal.

Other plans to make highways safer involve installation of CCTVs and GPS system on most stretches of the highways. ‘‘The installation should be implemented in three months,’’ says Saumitra Yadav, superintendent of police, Noida. Officers say that with the GPS system in place, patrolling will be more efficient as one can find out the vehicle’s location from the control room itself.

Source: http://epaper.timesofindia.com (Delhi Edition)
Date Of Publish: 24-Dec-06

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