Times of India: Gurgaon: Sunday, January 12, 2014.
City
residents and those who live elsewhere but work in Gurgaon are happy with the
news that the toll plaza at Sirhaul on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, a site of
perpetual traffic jam and myriad traffic woes, will soon be removed.
Commuters
using the expressway now pay Rs 42 to drive to Delhi and back.
The money,
however, is not such an issue as the daily jams are. The toll plaza and the
road leading to it are always chock-a-block with vehicles, so much so that at
times, it takes hours to go to the other side of the toll plaza. This delay
affect commuters, especially office-goers, both financially and productively.
The highway
operator on Friday agreed to exit the expressway project, a move that will pave
the way for the removal of the toll plaza. The operator - Delhi-Gurgaon Super
Connectivity Ltd (DGSCL) - and lenders led by Infrastructure Development
Finance Company (IDFC) submitted a joint letter to the National Highways Authority
of India (NHAI), sources familiar with the development told TOI. Immediately
after this, NHAI began talks to remove the 32-lane toll plaza at the border
once the lenders took charge of the road project. Once the move goes through,
drivers will not have to pay any toll till they reach the second toll gate at
Kherki Dhaula.
Speaking on
behalf of the corporate set-up in Gurgaon, more so in and around Cyber City,
Raman Roy, one of the pioneers of the Indian outsourcing industry, called the
Delhi-Gurgaon toll plaza a 'huge bottleneck'.
"It will
be really beneficial for the corporate world if the bottleneck is removed. It
will be a boon to all of us. The number of man-hours wasted while waiting at
this toll plaza is colossal. I have missed so many important meetings and my
schedules have gone haywire because of the jam here," he said. "Blood
pressure goes up because of the way commuters are treated at the toll plaza by
its staff. Anxiety levels reach a crescendo."
Roy was
especially miffed with the "rude and obnoxious" staff. "For the
past six months, we are not even able to check the balance in our tag as the
systems do not work. Just to ensure that I am not treated this way, I have been
regularly topping up my tag. Non-tag users get into the tag lane and there is
utter chaos," he added.
According to
residents, their quality of life would improve only with the removal of the
toll plaza. "The toll plaza was a huge pain. We had to think twice before
going towards Delhi and often opted for MG Road and Old Delhi-Gurgaon Road just
to escape the never-ending traffic jam at this spot. We hope that whatever has
been promised by the authorities concerned will be delivered. I hope this is no
eyewash. Not only will we be able save the toll amount, but also the money we
wasted on fuel while waiting for the traffic to move. Moreover, we will save a
lot of time," Rajat Aggarwal, a resident of Sector 17, said.
There are
other residents, who have taken the RTI route to find out how they are being
conned. "Around two years ago, we had filed an RTI application, in which
we got to know that by August 2011, the private concessionaire had already
earned Rs 748 crore and since then, over two years have lapsed and one can
imagine the amount of wealth amassed by this private company," said Gaurav
Singla, a resident.
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