BPIAI, an affiliated association of industry body CII in its meeting with the DSC team discussed various issues related to traffic since the opening of the Delhi - Gurgaon express highway.

Addressing the session held on February 11, 2008 at Gurgaon, Mr. Samir Chopra, President, BPIAI mentioned that the expressway has been in the news since it opened, with commuters complaining of delays at its tollgates. The traffic snarls during peak hours has severely affected the BPO Sector as well.

Mr. Chopra requested the DSC officials and his team to ensure an improved traffic management at the highway and chalk out ways to bring relief to all commuters.

Adding to the toll plaza mess is the odd toll charges, mixing of traffic in improper lanes; relatively low number of passes issued so far and smaller signage on lane information, said Mr. Satendra Kumar Gupta, DCP, Traffic, Haryana Police.

We also need adequate support from the Traffic Management team of Haryana Police towards devising strategy for various issues pertaining to the Traffic Management especially in the areas like, Infinity Towers, Cyber greens, Udyog Vihar and NH8, said Mr. Chopra.

Besides, BPIAI is open to schedule meeting in every three months with the DSC and the DCP, Traffic to resolve the queries related to Traffic concerning the city. A single window system could be formed to deal with such issues added, Mr. Deepak Ohlyan, Chairman, Infrastructure Committee, BPIAI.

At the Interaction, the DSC officials said that they've set up barricades at a distance of about 500 metres from the toll plaza and had started segregating the vehicles according to respective lanes. It is desired that all commuters shift to the smart tag to pay toll, as this would enable more cars to be processed reducing the waiting period for which several measures have already been adopted. In the interim period commuters are requested to carry exact change to the tollbooth and equally important is keeping this change handy so that it can be reached in a split of a second.

Toll exemption is already available as per the rules and regulations given under the concession agreement for Ambulances, Fire tenders and Official Vehicles. The association also appreciated the efforts initiated by the DSC with respect to deployment of additional resources to register more and more commuters and adopting various marketing strategies.

Further, BPIAI had also put forward some requests including dedicated lanes for BPOs, double lane driving, smart cards towards the left lane for smoother traffic, BPO patrolling vehicles to get VIP access, multiple entry tags for all BPO tags with volume discounts (BPOs willing to pay). The infrastructure committee at BPIAI is also willing to meet up with the DS team soon to discuss and further resolve these issues.

There was a mutual agreement on taking steps to educate the members of BPIAI on the benefits of Smart Tag registration for which a note will be prepared by DSC for circulation amongst the BPIAI members to put them on fast track lane. BPIAI in a joint effort with Police have deployed some vehicles for patrolling for which the association has requested VIP clearance at the toll plaza in order for them to reach the destination in case of an incident quickly. DSC has agreed to look for a way to address this soon.

13^th February 2008

Gurgaon