Karnal: Bottlenecks on NH-44 threat to commuters

Parveen Arora

Karnal, February 24

Bottlenecks near the Karna Lake and Madhuban on the National Highway-44 are posing a safety threat to commuters. The traffic from service lanes merge with main lanes here and the single bridge on each canal makes the points congested.

To clear these bottlenecks, the district-level road safety committee had proposed the construction of additional bridges on the augmentation canal near Haryana Police Academy in Madhuban and on the Western Yamuna Canal near the Karna Lake.

Proposal by road safety panel

• Construction of additional bridges on the augmentation canal near Haryana Police Academy in Madhuban and on Western Yamuna Canal near Karna Lake has been proposed by the district-level road safety committee.
• Officials said the Rs27-crore bridge project on the augmentation canal had been passed. The Irrigation Department had to transfer funds to the highways authority. However, nothing has been done so far.

Officials said a Rs 27-crore project of constructing a bridge on the augmentation canal had already already been passed and the Irrigation Department had to transfer funds to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). However, nothing has been done.

“We will float a tender for the construction of the bridge on the Augmentation Canal soon after the Irrigation Department transfers funds,” said Bhanu Pratap Singh, section engineer of the NHAI, Ambala.

Sources said the initial process for the proposed additional bridge on the Western Yamuna Canal is yet to start. Both points are among the major accident-prone areas of the district. Apart from them, Kohand on the NH-44

and Ramba Mor on the Karnal-Indri state highway are also vulnerable points for accidents in the district.

A location is declared a black spot if five mishaps, fatal or non-fatal, take place in a stretch of 500 meters.

Karnal has witnessed a spike in accidents in comparison to last year. As many as 688 accidents took place in 2021, resulted in deaths of 383 persons and injuries to 464, while in 2020, as many as 624 accidents took place that led to deaths of 334 persons and injuries to 443 persons. Police sources say several accidents occurred at these accident points last year also.

Ganga Ram Punia, Superintendent of Police (SP), said earlier, there were 17 accident-prone areas. He said flaws had been rectified on most of them. “The issue of the bottleneck at these points has been taken up in the district-level road safety committee and we are hopeful the issue will be resolved soon,” said the SP.

He said they launched awareness drives to educate people about traffic rules and issue challans to violators.

Karnal Deputy Commissioner Anish Yadav said the issue had been taken up in the meeting on Thursday. “Permission for the additional bridge has been given and the Irrigation Department has to transfer funds to the NHAI. I will take up the issue of the additional bridge on the Western Yamuna Canal near Karna Lake with the higher authorities of the NHAI,” said DC Yadav.