By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: PWD Minister HDR Lyngdoh has informed that he will be convening a meeting on Tuesday to find out the ways and means to ease traffic congestion along the Shillong-Guwahati road (NH-40).
“We are deeply concerned over the difficulties faced by commuters on account of the traffic jam which lasted for nearly two days along the NH-40. The Government is totally committed to coming out with a lasting solution to ensure the smooth flow of traffic along the highways. We do not want such things to be repeated,” Lyngdoh told reporters here on Monday.
Not only was Governor RS Mooshahary and Education Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh caught in the traffic snarl, the PWD Minister said he too was a victim, while travelling to Guwahati to catch a flight for Itanagar to pay homage to Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister late Dorjee Khandu. Surprisingly the PWD Minister was totally unaware about the State Government directive to the district administration to conduct mobile courts to check overloading of coal laden trucks. “I am not aware that the Government has issued such directives. I thought the district administration of Ri Bhoi had conducted this mobile court on their own,” Lyngdoh said. He also said that he did it not consider it a good idea to conduct the mobile court along the national highway since the situation is not conducive, with so many trucks presently plying on the road. “I am also totally surprised to know that the magistrates were stationed only at the weighbridge in Umling for conducting of the mobile court. They should have been moving along the highway because that is the purpose of a mobile court,” the PWD Minister said while adding that he was informed that on the day of the traffic jam the district administration had no knowledge that the trucks were parked all along the highway to avoid the mobile court. He also informed that the NHAI is expected to come up with a traffic management plan which would address the traffic congestion while the four laning of Umiam to Jorabat is on. “Initially, we have not fixed any time frame for the NHAI to come up with the traffic management plan. But after the recent traffic congestion, the Government has sought the assistance of NHAI to come up with a traffic management plan at the earliest,” Lyngdoh said. When asked if the stationing of the weighbridge and sales tax collection point at Byrnihat were not in violation of the law, he said that all these things would be discussed in the meeting to be convened by him. Replying to another query, the PWD Minister said that the Government is proposing to make the road from Mairang to Rani as the alternative route for the commuters to travel to Guwahati airport. “We would soon be allotting the work for improvement of this proposed road through the NEC funds,” he further added.