If all goes according to the plans, the Chandigarh-Shimla National Highway (NH-5) would soon have a dedicated police post of its own. The Solan police has proposed a dedicated police post at Jabli to the Himachal government, and is confident that the post would go a long way in not only controlling the occurrence of heinous crime on the highway, but also in managing the heavy traffic flow. It is to be noted that lakhs of vehicles move on the NH-5 to and fro from the Tricity and other places to Himachal Pradesh on a daily basis, with the inflow almost
being ten times especially during weekends and peak seasons.

Talking to The Indian Express, Solan SP Gaurav Singh said it has been long since a dedicated police post was planned. “Being the gateway to Himachal Pradesh, the vehicular movement on NH-5 is in lakhs on daily basis. Also the number goes up by many times during the weekends and peak seasons. So there was an urgent need to control all the types of heinous and minor cases of crime and traffic related issues on this highway,” the SP added.

The police official said that a proposal has been sent to the Himachal government and once they get the desired approval, the police post would be set up at the earliest. “Presently three to four sights have been shortlisted by the police department at Jabli, but the location would be finalised once the approvals come. Under the proposal, we plan to have in all 15 police officials for this Jabli police post that would be headed by an ASI rank police official and above,” Singh said.

Currently, Singh said, all cases of crime on the NH-5 are either handled by the SHO of Dharampur or Parwanoo police stations.

The SP further adds: “According to the police norms, for an area to qualify to have a police post established, it has to meet like having 25 to 30 FIRs registered under serious offences. But this highway has ten times more cases of major and minor crimes that makes it fit to have a police post at the earliest. According to a report made by us, in the last few years, more than 250 FIRs under heinous crime have been reported on this highway ranging from murders, attempt to murder cases, rape cases etc”.

Meanwhile, the commuters on the Chandigarh-Shimla National Highway have welcomed the news. “This is one of the busiest national highways since it is the gateway to Himachal Pradesh. There have been several instances of accidents and crime on this highway and many times the assistance from the police reaches late,” Kishori Lal, a regular commuter on the NH-5 said. With a dedicated police post and staff, it would be easy to control and handle the crimes, Lal said, adding that the post would go a long way in managing the heavy and light vehicular traffic flow too.

Repair work goes into sleep mode

The GR Infraprojects is supposed to carry out the repairs of the entire Parwanoo-Solan stretch. It is the same company that constructed the four lane there. After Chakki Mor, the repairs of entire stretch has been stopped due to lack of approvals.

Requesting anonymity, senior officials of GR Infraprojects said the repair works on the entire stretch have been stopped completely as the firm has not received any approval from the NHAI. “The designs had been sent long back by our company to the NHAI and it was claimed that the approvals were expected anytime from now, but nothing came,” one of the officials said. He added that if the company does not get any go-ahead soon, meeting the deadline of October 15 for the construction of two lane bituminous road at Chakki Mor and completing other minor and moderate repair work on this highway would not be possible .

However, Anand Dahiya, Project Director, NHAI, added that despite the wait in approvals, the work should not stop. “The approvals keep coming, but waiting for them and stopping the work is not right. It is a process and these things do take time,” Dahiya added.