Toll Plazas must have separate lane for ambulance, says Madras HC

Chennai: Directing the authorities to maintain the toll road properly, the Madras high court said toll plazas must have a separate dedicated lane in each direction for ambulance and exempted vehicles, across the state.

“The dedicated lane must have security personnel on duty at both the entry points with a safety cone or it should be manned with a boom barrier manually operating so as to clear the ambulance and exempted vehicles without loss of time”, said a division bench comprising Justices K.K.Sasidharan and G.Swaminathan.

The bench gave the directive while disposing of a Public Interest Litigation from P.Palanikumar, which sought a direction to the National Highways Authority of India and the concessionaire to maintain the toll road in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Concession Agreement and not to allow the vehicles to park in unauthorised manner on the toll road endangering the life of motorists.

The bench said there were several toll plazas in the state of Tamil Nadu operated by the contractors. Majority of these toll plazas have no separate dedicated way for ambulance and other exempted vehicles. Certain toll plazas have separate lanes for toll free traffic.

But, those lanes were blocked with heavy boulder stones and other heavy material objects. There are no separate staffers to man these lanes. Therefore, even the ambulances have to wait for considerable time to cross the toll plaza. This would cause loss of life to those who were taken in ambulance. It will also contribute to the delay in passing through.

In some of these toll plazas, vehicles have to wait minimum 15 to 20 minutes. Till this was cleared, even the ambulance and exempted vehicles have to wait in the queue. “This is the sad story in Tamil Nadu. However, in the neighbouring State of Kerala, there are separate dedicated lanes for ambulance and exempted vehicles manned by employees exclusively for day and night.

However, in Tamil Nadu, on account of the failure of the project directors to supervise the toll plazas, long queues are experienced very often. Though the normal service time allowed is 15 seconds for manual/semi-automatic system with a queue length of not more than 5 vehicles at any point of time, in reality, each vehicle takes 3 to 15 minutes to pass the toll plaza”, the bench added.

The bench said Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) projects were implemented by BOT Concessionaires and there were 26 toll plazas in operation in 20 project stretches implemented under the BOT scheme. Similarly, there were 17 toll plazas involving 9 project stretches in the state implemented through Operation, Maintenance and Tolling (OMT). These were public funded projects and collection of user-fee was entrusted to a separate agency based on competitive bidding. The Operation and Maintenance including collection of user-fee was being monitored by the independent consultant appointed by NHAI.

The Concessionaire was allowed to collect user-fee for maintaining the completed stretch during the concession period varying from 15 to 30 years on case to case basis.

“The Tamil Nadu Road Development Company Limited is maintaining the toll road on ECR and OMR. The submission made by the General Manager of TNRTC in his counter that separate dedicated way is provided and is being operated in the toll plazas at ECR is far from truth.

Though there is a dedicated way at the toll plazas on ECR, it is always kept closed and as a result, the ambulance and other exempted vehicles have to take the normal way meant for paid traffic”, the bench added.