Kurali-Kiratpur Sahib toll plaza motorists’ nightmare

Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 24

The Kurali-Kiratpur Sahib toll plaza is proving to be a nightmare for the motorists. It is located on one of the busiest sections of the National Highway-21 that connects parts of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir with Chandigarh through Mohali and Kharar.

Nearly 22,000 vehicles cross through it daily. Due to slow pace of issuing toll fee receipts and eight of the 10 lanes operational, motorists are complaining of long waiting period touching up to 20 minutes. One lane each is reserved for emergency/VIP vehicles and fast tag holders.

“As per the advisory by the NHAI, toll operators are required to limit the waiting period to two minutes and the number of vehicles in a queue should not exceed six at a given time. People facing emergency situations are harassed the most. We are inconvenienced despite paying a heavy fee,” said Ujagar Singh, a resident of Hoshirapur, who had to wait at the toll plaza for 17 minutes yesterday.

A number of other commuters plying on this section complain of poor monitoring and inadequate staff to ensure speedy issuing of toll receipts with hand-held devices.

Punjab Traffic Adviser Navdeep K Asija said: “The operator should be made answerable for keeping the motorists waiting for more than the stipulated time. The operator should ensure that queues in all lanes are cleared quickly”.

Commuters have urged the NHAI to make it binding on the operator to refund the money to the user if the waiting period exceeds two minutes.

OP Mathur, project director, National Highways Authority of India, said there was no rule to refund the toll fee. “But we regularly ask the operator to ensure that the queues are cleared quickly. We are also trying to increase the lanes. But acquiring land is an issue,” he said.