Mansar toll plaza not being shifted

Nagpur: Congress has flayed union transport minister Nitin Gadkari for not fulfilling his promise of shifting the Mansar toll plaza to Manegaon. Residents of Ramtek travelling to Nagpur have to pay toll as a result.
Udaysingh Yadav, general secretary of Nagpur District Congress Committee, said that Gadkari had announced on October 29, 2018 that the Mansar toll plaza would be shifted to vicinity of Khawasa from January 1, 2019. In the meeting held on last Wednesday, BJP MLA from Ramtek DM Reddy raised the issue but in vain. Gadkari had made the same promise in 2015 too.

“Why is BJP not raising the issue vehemently? This means they are favouring the toll operator at the cost of citizens,” said Yadav.

According to him, the then Congress MP Mukul Wasnik had directed the then district collector Saurabh Rao in August 2013 to find out whether the Mansar toll plaza was illegal. A meeting was held in Rao’s office a week later in which officials of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) were present.

A joint measurement was done in November 2013 in which it was found that the toll plaza should be located near Mansar police post, which is beyond the road for Ramtek. This was conveyed to NHAI officials. Rao directed NHAI and its contractor Oriental to shift the plaza but they ignored it.

Yadav claimed that in May 2017, the local NHAI office sent a proposal to its head office to shift the toll plaza but it is yet to be approved. He questioned the sincerity of Gadkari in fulfilling his promise.