Road widening: 6 killed in a month

Gurdeep Singh Mann

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, February 24

The road-widening project has taken six lives in Bathinda in the past one month.

The project is undertaken on the Bathinda-Barnala and Bathinda-Goniana roads where heavy vehicles, plying in huge number, have caused many fatal road accidents.

The police have registered six cases of fatal road accidents at the Cantonment, Nathana and Rampura police stations in the past one month.

The maximum road accidents have been reported on the Bathinda-Barnala road.

Vehicles moving towards Chandigarh and Ludhiana take this road, which makes it a busy stretch.

Accident victims said despite identifying the accident spots, there was hardly anything done to solve the problem.

“The roads where the construction work is on is full of potholes, dust and, confusion, which causes road accidents,” said Mohan Kumar, a recent victim of road accident.

Mohan’s Indica Vista car was damaged when it hit an invisible bump near Rampura. His wife, Arti, received head injuries.

Mohan said the road is widening project has led to confusion and is no signboard installed to help commuters.

“Also, the diversions are quite unclear. The threat becomes more serious for the two-wheelers at night,” said Tej Singh, another accident victim from Rampura.

He said the bike he was riding on was hit by a high speed truck as he failed to see the heavy vehicle amid dust.

Bikram Gill, a resident of Gill Kalan village of Rampura, said though some patches had been completed on the Bathinda-Barnala road, still there were numerous problems.

“A high speed vehicle hit the low lying under-constructed road all of a sudden which too proves instrumental in causing accidents. There are numerous such stretches which still need urgent attention but to no avail,” Gill said.

Sonu Maheshwari, president of NGO Naujawan Welfare Society that helps accident victims and shifts them to hospitals, said, “We pick accident victims almost every day from the under-construction roads. Though the situation during the day is bad, a person riding on a two-wheeler has no chance of escape at night.”

He said a young boy riding on a Royal Enfield motorcycle slipped into a pothole last night and got serious head injuries.