Travellers planning to enjoy their long weekend encountered familiar challenges of heavy traffic congestion on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway on Saturday.
Journalist Prashant Kadam shared a video on X (formerly Twitter), showing long queues of vehicles at the Khalapur toll plaza. He mentioned that despite the implementation of FASTag, people were forced to wait for more than 30 minutes at the toll plaza. "40 minutes for 40 seconds of work," he lamented. "What happened to the 100-meter rule?" Kadam questioned.
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"In order to ensure minimal waiting time at the toll plazas, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has issued guidelines to ensure service time of not more than 10 seconds per vehicle even at peak hours at the toll plazas on the National Highways. The new set of guidelines will also ensure seamless flow of traffic at the toll plazas by not allowing vehicles to queue up more than 100 metres. Although in most of the toll plazas, there is no waiting time after mandatory 100% Fastag, even then, if there is a queue of waiting vehicles longer than 100 metres due to any reason, vehicles should be allowed to pass without paying toll until the queue reduces within 100 meters of the toll booth. For this purpose, a yellow line at a distance of 100 meters from each toll lane's booth will be marked," stated the NHAI in a 2021 release.
Meanwhile, X users commented that no toll plaza adheres to the 100-metre rule.
"We need strict action to enforce this law. Not a single toll plaza follows this 100-metre rule," one user remarked.
"The huge time wastage is becoming unbearable. It severely tests our patience. Implementing the 100-metre yellow line rule is essential, @nitin_gadkari. Show some mercy. Despite paying high tolls, the Pune-Nashik highway conditions are appalling. Somatane toll naka is torturous and punitive," another user wrote.
Check out the reactions below:
