Pune (Maharashtra) [India] : Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar expressed grief over frequent accidents on the Samruddhi-Mahamarg Expressway and said that a team of experts should be constituted to find the reason behind such incidents.
While addressing a press conference in Pune on Saturday, Pawar said, “It’s unfortunate that we have witnessed frequent accidents on this highway for the last few months. A team of experts should be constituted to find the reasons for the accidents and they should study all the roads in the country to avoid accidents”. He said that he travelled on the highway and met the locals. He said that the locals while sharing their experience, said that the highway may not be planned in a scientific way due to which frequent accidents are happening. “I also travelled on this highway and met locals. I asked them about their experience of this highway and they said its planning might not have been done in a scientific way due to which they are witnessing frequent accidents on it,” the NCP chief said.
He said, “The locals had told me that if someone loses their life in an accident on the new road, then villagers say that the deceased person has become ‘Devendra-wasi’ (indirectly referring to Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis) and blame those who were involved in making decisions for planning and making the highway. Pawar further said that it feels sad to witness such repeated accidents and these things will not resolve by just proving compensation, a team of experts should be constituted. “I feel sad about these repeated accidents. After an accident, the state government declares Rs 5 lakh compensation to the family of the deceased but these problems are not going to resolve with this. A team of experts should be constituted to find the reasons for the accidents and they should study all the roads in the country to avoid accidents”, Pawar said.
The accident took place at around 1:30 am on Saturday in which 25 passengers of a private bus died after the vehicle caught fire on the Samruddhi-Mahamarg Expressway in Maharashtra’s Buldhana. According to police, a total of 33 people were travelling in the bus which was on its way to Pune.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis visited the accident site and met the injured at the Buldhana Civil Hospital. Fadnavis ruled out road construction on the Samruddhi-Mahamarg Expressway as the cause of the accident.