The Hindu : Kerala News : NH service roads accident-prone

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 24, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala

NH service roads accident-prone

Staff Reporter

Low visibility on roads proves hazardous

KOCHI: The service roads on either side of the six-km-long NH bypass between Vytilla and Edapally have turned accident-prone with low visibility at U-turns due to overgrowth of shrubs. Vehicles venturing into the bypass from illegal accesses on the service roads too have been causing accidents.

Unauthorised parking is rampant along certain stretches on the service roads, eating into a good share of the tarred portion. Trucks, goods and passenger autorickshaws and cars are parked haphazardly on both sides of the road.

Besides, the over drains are filled illegally on either side. Even a moderate downpour results in the service roads getting immersed in knee-deep water. With even authorised accesses in a dilapidated condition, motorists are unable to identify them from innumerable illegal ones.

Construction materials have been unloaded across the width of the service road in Chalikkavattom Junction, posing danger to motorists and pedestrians at night. Steel rods used for concreting have been piled up on the service road, in front of a hotel project coming up at Chakkaraparambu.

Their edges protrude out dangerously into the ill lit road.

Workers of a political party have put up boards demanding a ban on parking along the service roads, in front of a prominent hospital and a parcel godown on the Palarivattom-Vytilla route.

The police stepped in by putting up no-parking boards on the service roads.

There is increasing demand to ensure that businesses and hospitals earmark adequate parking space within their premises.

G. Sivaram Raju, project director of National Highways Authority of India (which owns the stretch), says it is up to the police and civic agencies such as the Corporation and Public Works Department (National Highways) to ensure that vehicles are not parked on the bypass and those parked on service roads do not affect free movement of vehicles.

"Many buildings coming up on the sides of the service roads have not maintained the mandatory 10-metre distance from the road.

"Further widening of the bypass has become next to impossible. We have delegated maintenance work of the roads, drains and medians to the PWD (NH) and have been giving funds from time to time," he said.

A senior PWD official admitted that interference from `various quarters' was hampering efforts to ensure that the service roads are kept free of encroachments, filling of drains and unauthorised parking.

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