Maharashtra: Stray animals continue to plague motorists on Samruddhi highway

Stray animals walking on the Samruddhi Highway

While the Nagpur-Shirdi section of the Samruddhi Highway has been opened to traffic, stray animals and livestock pose a serious threat to drivers. The absence of roadside amenities, such as motels and eateries, is a major issue, as we discovered during our tour of the Shirdi-Nagpur stretch. Additionally, we found that in many places, the farmers had taken down the fences (walls) that were built to keep cattle and stray animals off the road.

‘Travel of 8 km for meals'

Motorist Hitendra Pachkale said, "There is no denying that the Samruddhi Highway saves a significant amount of travel time, but the absence of services like hotels and restaurants creates a great deal of frustration for motorists. To get meals, we had to exit the Samruddhi Highway and travel 6 to 8 kilometers to Sindhakhed Raja town in Buldhana."

During our trip, we also discovered that although there are a number of petrol pumps along the route, their number appears to be lower than necessary, causing inconvenience to drivers. Another driver, Imran Udat, stated, "The Samruddhi Highway is particularly fantastic for driving; however, due to the road alignment's strong linearity, drivers frequently experience road hypnosis. I believe that the authorities should build rumble strips like they do on other highways to resolve this issue."

Also Read: Maharashtra: Taking the Samruddhi highway? Be careful, warn motorists

Motorists cross speed limit

As a reporter who recently travelled from Shirdi to Nagpur and back, we also learned that although the posted speed limit is 120 km/h, many drivers were actually traveling much faster than that. For this reason, the highway traffic police should have speed guns fixed at regular intervals.

A passenger from one of the cars, Kaushalendra Dubey, also observed that stray animals, cattle, and wildlife entering the Samruddhi Highway may result in traffic accidents as drivers may need to use emergency brakes.

mid-day had also published a story about how farmers who have farms on either side of the expressway removed the compound walls constructed by MSRDC, resulting in stray dogs and wild animals coming onto the highway.

Overpasses, underpasses

Time and again, authorities have claimed that the 701-km-long expressway was planned in such a way that it would not cause trouble for wildlife. There are a total of nine green overpasses and 17 underpasses for use by wild animals.

It has also been reported that MSRDC has prohibited the planting of 13 varieties of fruit trees that attract wildlife in order to minimize accidents and prevent animals from entering the highway corridor.

Previous story of mid-day

After the inauguration of the Samruddhi Highway, mid-day published a story about how wild animals and stray dogs were being killed on the highway while attempting to cross it. Sources from MSRDC informed the newspaper that animals suddenly coming onto the highway were also causing vehicular accidents.

Wild animals crossing over

In January of this year, more than 10 wild boars died on the highway. Later, a video of three Nilgai crossing the highway went viral. In the video, which was shot by a motorist, it can be seen that the Nilgai is crossing the highway by jumping over the crash barriers installed on the median and the side of the highway.

High safety police

The HSP (Highway Safety Police) have set up 15 traffic aid posts (TAPs) along the Expressway. Incident Management has been thought through and MSRDC has deployed over 150 Security Personnel drawn from the pool of Ex-Servicemen to aid and assist the TAPs set up by HSP. 21 ambulances, 21 Quick Response Vehicles, 15 Cranes of 30 MT each and 15 patrolling vehicles are also deployed.

13
No of underpasses