Negligence during the construction and maintenance of roads is an issue that is often raised in various places across the nation. A clip from the Delhi-Vadodara Expressway in Alwar has gained a lot of attention lately through social networking sites as it shows a car hitting and bouncing in the air as a result of the poor construction of that road. Once the video was released, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways responded quickly, removed the engineer, and placed a penalty of fifty lakhs to the contractor.

According to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the inquiry was conducted pursuant to the instructions of Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Mr Nitin Gadkari, and necessary action has been taken against the officials and agencies accountable for the works.

Delhi-Vadodara Expressway Car Jump

The NHAI’s gate revealed that there was ₹50 lakh fine imposed on the contractor for not repairing the road defects in time. Worryingly, the team leader cum resident engineer in charge of construction supervision was sacked for irresponsibility, and the site engineer also sacked which is in charge of the contractors.

A show cause notice has also been issued to the Project Director (PD) and Manager (Tech) for their negligence in the risk management process. It was previously reported in the video which was loaded to social media (Instagram) verified that the incident took place in the Delhi Vadodara Expressway.

The Super Expressway Delhi Vadodara Expressway also known as the expressway passes through the district of Alwar.

Vehicles generally do not exceed 120 kilometers per hour speed on this road. However, the Alwar and Dausa parts of the expressway are extremely accident prone mainly attributable to bad road conditions, loss of traction, deformation of the surfaces, and distributed gravel over the road. There are circumstances when there is flooding and this leads to some portions of the road being sunk. More recently, owing to the rising number of accidents that were occurring, IIT carried out some investigation to find out the reasons behind it.

Reacting to the increase in the number of accidents, NHAI has also put in place a system where challans (fines) are issued online for those who go above the prescribed speed limit. However, even when the maximum limit on the road is 120km/hr, it has been observed that some of the vehicles on the expressway were recorded at a speed of 280km/hr. Immediately after the video went viral, the incident, which is believed to have happened in the Alwar region, provoked some response measures.

One another video depicts a car that is going at a high speed, losing control, and flipping out into the air while there is no other physical obstruction to the simple action of traveling for quite some time. When did this accident happen, NHAI officials said. Mr. PK Kaushik, Project Director, Delhi-Mumbai Expressway in the Sohna area, said that the occurrence of these potholes is caused by the rainwater.

As soon as the pothole reports are submitted for verification, repair work begins at once. At this time, there is active work being done to correct the potholes that have formed in the Alwar region, the continued downpour has not helped the situation.