-SATISH HANDA

A recent survey reveals, there are more than 60 black spots which include nearly 10 in Haryana and nearly 50 in Punjab on 291 km busy national highway between Panipat and Jalandhar having three Toll Plaza on the route including two in Haryana and one in Punjab which earned yearly revenue for amount worth Rs 600 crore to contracting firm Soma Isolax  also responsible for maintenance of this six lane national highway vide contract between National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and the company in 2008 started functioning in 2009. The contract between two was extended in between and was terminated in March 2021 by NHAI since Soma Isolax company failed to provide satisfactory services towards maintenance, repairs on the road and rectify identified black spots on the national highway as per contract causing large number of frequent road mishaps claimed several lives.

Investigation reveals, nearly11258 road accidents on this national highway were reported to police in 2017, the number of road mishaps on the highway was reported 11238 in 2018, Police registered 10944 road accident cases on this highway in 2019 and according to available record till June 2020 the number of road mishaps was reported as 4024 in which large number of persons were killed or seriously injured allegedly due to lack of repairs on the road, black spots, absence of street light not installed as per contract on service lane, missing fencing on the road side and large number of stray animals wandering on the highway.

When contract between NHAI and Soma Isolax was terminated in March this year, later moved to High Court as well as Supreme Court of India and presently the case is in Tribunal as a result vehicle owners travelling on this national highway are suffering lot of inconvenience. Regional Officer NHAI  Rakesh Singh on contacting told that as many as 60 black s[pots have been identified  on this 291 km long national highway and work for repairs has been allotted to some other contractor to avoid road mishaps.