Congress protests proposed toll plaza spot

Raipur, December 24, 2011

The Congress has strongly protested the proposed toll plaza spot near Sundar Nagar at Ring Road No 1 and has demanded from government to intervene and ask the implementing agency DS Vicon to shift the spot outside municipal periphery. In this connection, the members of PCC business cell led by their state president Kanhaiyya Agrawal submitted a memorandum to Principal Secretary PWD MK Rout at Secretariat on Saturday.

“However, our meeting was not fruitful as Rout said toll plaza spot has been selected on the basis of the agreement done back in 2005. When we pointed that the toll plaza within the municipal limits would only cause traffic congestion and inconvenience to the motorists, Rout said he would forward our memorandum to the relevant officials of National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and DS Vicon,” Agrawal said.

Earlier, the implementing agency had started constructing toll plaza near Deendayal Upadhyay Nagar at Ring Road No 1 but had to stop the work after the protests of Congress and locals followed by seizure of its construction materials by the Raipur Municipal Corporation (RMC).

Then, the agency picked new spot for toll plaza near Sarona at Ring Road No 1 but the Congress protested again and NHAI to shift it out of the city. DS Vicon is the same company which had earlier completed the fourlane project from Raipur to Bhilai but was in controversy for constructing toll plazas at Kumhari and near Nehru Nagar Bhilai.

Agrawal said the government should tell the basis on which it was lending permission to the agency to select spot for toll plaza. “How can the government allow the agency to select spot within the RMC limits? Ironically it happened thrice but no single responsible person in the government realised it,” he said.

While submitting memorandum, Agrawal was accompanied by Congress members Ramesh Singh Thakur, Jageshwar Rajput, Sheikh Shakeel, Atul Raghuvanshi, Hitesh Taank and Nandu Yadu.