NH-22 commuters at receiving end

The work is being carried out by JP Associates on behalf of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).

“The ongoing work on the busy highway puts commuters’ lives to risk. A number of accidents have taken place in the last few months,” Kiran Mehra,a resident of Sector-2,said. “In the night,the patch becomes as good as a death trap,as the road lacks proper lighting. Further,absence of signboards adds to the woes.”

Another resident of the area,Sumit Aggarwal,added: “With heavy vehicles using the stretch,the highway has become accident prone for students like us,who have to cross it daily. Several times,I had a narrow escape.”

The Panchkula police said the NHAI and the construction company was responsible.

“Traffic chaos on this stretch has become a daily cause of concern. Some traffic officials have been deployed by the construction company but they are too less to man the heavy flow of traffic,” SHO (Traffic),Inspector Pawan Kumar,said. “Despite our requests to NHAI authorities,they have failed to act. Only a few days ago,the NHAI officials were asked to tell the construction company to fill up the big pot holes on the stretch.”

He said it was the responsibility of the NHAI and the construction company to man traffic during the construction period. Panchkula SP Maneesh Chaudhary was unavailable for comments.

Officials of JP Associates said 40 people will be deployed on the highway soon.

Talking to Newsline,a senior official of JP Associates said,“We have around 10 traffic officials on duty — six at the Majri Chownk point and four at the old Panchkula junction. After a recent meeting with SP Maneesh Chaudhary,we decided to deploy 40 more officials for smooth flow of traffic,” a senior official of the company said. “We have written to DG (Home Guard) for 40 home guards. We expect a response soon.”

The official added that around 3,000 signboards have been put up on the highway.