Sattur MLA, A.R.R. Raghuraman, has complained that a staff member at the Chittampatti toll plaza on the Madurai-Tiruchi highway near Melur did not honour his MLA identity card on Monday night. Besides, the MLA alleged that the staff member was rude to him, when he questioned him for not wearing a mask and gloves while at work in a public place.
Dr. Raghuraman said that newly-elected MLAs have been asked to flash their MLA identity cards at toll plazas till they were given FasTag stickers to provide them free passage at toll plazas across the State.
“We were told that this arrangement had been intimated to all the Project Managers of the National Highway Authority of India,” the MDMK MLA said. He said that he had not faced any difficulties at any other toll plazas. However, when he was returning home from Tiruchi, the staff at the Chittampatti toll plaza refused to allow his vehicle even after he showed the MLA identity card. “When I asked him to take the identity card from me to have a closer look, he refused claiming that under the pandemic situation, he was not allowed to touch it. It was then I asked him why he was not wearing a mask and gloves as per the government guidelines,” Dr. Raghuraman said.
Refusing to give the contact number of the manager of the toll plaza to the MLA, who wanted to resolve the issue, the staff member instead had reportedly challenged the MLA to find for himself the manager’s number. “Usually, road users whenever they face such situations do not make a fuss and leave the toll plazas without complaining as they would want to continue their journey or since they belong to some other place. This kind of worker take this to their advantage and behaves badly,” the MLA complained.
The MLA who drove back to Melur immediately lodged a police complaint against the worker for not wearing a mask and gloves during duty hours. He said that every toll plaza should display the phone numbers of the toll plaza manager and Project Director to help the road users. Besides, a complaint book should be made available to them, he said.