While the Gurjjar community takes the highway route to register its protests, there is a silent community along the same stretches that is counting its losses in fear. The National Highways Authority of India’s (NHAI) toll plazas stood through four days of highway blockade along NH 8 (Delhi-Jaipur) with its staff holed up inside with a few security guards, its cash reserves dwindling and a concerned NHAI asking district administrations and the local police to protect its plazas. The four day blockade along NH 8 has left NHAI short of several lakhs in toll revenue, but what is worse is the heavy damage to the under-construction Jaipur-Agra highway. “We have been holed up in Dausa for the last four days and have got reports of damages to the highway. Only when the protestors leave can we assess the damage,” said an official involved in the four laning of the highway. NHAI is already staring at a damage list which includes six-feet-deep trenches dug up on the highway near Sikandara, equipment for road construction belonging to contractors captured, road signage, barricades, diversion boards and even kerb stones torn out of the road, missing construction material and much more. “There were attempts to bring down two major bridges across the river Bar Ganga but we got to know about this in time and alerted the police. Still the protestors managed to pull out the railings. At other places burning tyres damaged road surface. There is much to be done if and when the protestors get off the highway,” said an official. A huge slump in toll collection has only made matters worse. On May 30, theBilaspur toll plaza saw its collections dip from a daily average of Rs 16 lakh to Rs 11 lakh. At Bhilwara, collections fell by 60 per cent. In the last four days, all toll plazas in Rajasthan have seen collections dipping by a minimum of a lakh a day and Delhi-Jaipur highway’s eastern section has been the worst hit.
