Day after mishap wipes out family on Pune-Solapur road, traffic cops and PMC say National Highways Authority of India's inaction on road widening responsible for recurring fatal accidents; residents say BRTS the culprit
Day after mishap wipes out family on Pune-Solapur road, traffic cops and PMC say National Highways Authority of India's inaction on road widening responsible for recurring fatal accidents; residents say BRTS the culprit
After an entire family perished in an accident on Wednesday, when a speeding truck ran over them on Pune-Solapur road in Hadapsar, the blame game has now begun.
The Pune Municpal Corporation (PMC) and traffic police blame the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) while local people and the police blame the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) project for the fatalities.
City traffic police had written to PMC regarding Pune-Solapur road since it is very accident-prone. The last letter sent by PMC to the traffic department on August 7, 2009, mentions that PMC cannot undertake development work on the stretch from Ravidarshan society to AIR office because the area comes under NHAI.
The letter also states that the problems on that particular stretch on Pune-Solapur road is due to the inaction on the part of NHAI as the latter is neither widening the road nor allowing PMC to do it.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Manoj Patil says, "The wider stretch on designated BRTS route becomes narrow after the flyover ends near Ravidarshan society. Vehicles coming at high speed from the wider part of the road can't control their speed and collide with slow vehicles taking a right."
Additional City Engineer Srinivas Bonala from the Traffic Planning department of PMC has stated in his letter to traffic department that NHAI is not widening the road and is also not allowing PMC to improve the infrastructure on that particular stretch. Despite PMC's willingness to bear the cost of road widening and other works, NHAI has not allowed them to do so. Despite several attempts by MiD DAY to contact NHAI engineer Salunke, he was unavailable for comment.
Police Inspector Pandharinath Mandhare from Hadapsar police station said that it was because of the gross misuse of the BRTS lane by other vehicles that most of the accidents have happened on the killer stretch.
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