Bharuch: Over 30 Congress leaders and workers were today detained by police here while they were protesting against the start of toll collection on the largest extra dosed cable stay bridge on river Narmada which was inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi on March 7 this year.

PI of C-division police station R D Kava said that 33 protestors of Congress who were heading towards the toll booth and also blocked the road were detained. They could not reach the toll point which become operational today.

Congress is protesting the toll collection on the bridge meant to end the woes commuters and transporters owing to recurring horrible jams on the all important Ahmedabad-Mumbai section of National Highway 8 in Bharuch. Earlier party’s Rajyasabha MP and political secretary of its president Sonia Gandhi. Ahmed Patel, who himself was a native of Bharuch, had written a letter to Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari expressing his shock at construction of toll booth for the bridge. He had claimed that there was no such provision for the bridge which was sanctioned during erstwhile UPA government constructed at the cost Rs 379 crore. He had raised objection saying that the 1344 meter long bridge was sanctioned under engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) basis and no tax was to be collected from people.

A local Congress leader said that there was no point in collecting toll for the bridge. ‘This will also defeat the very purpose for which it was constructed as owing to toll booths the smooth flow of traffic will also not be possible and jams will again become the order here,’ he said.

Meanwhile an official of the NHAI said that the toll collection contractor has at its own decided to not to collect toll from local vehicles (with registration number of GJ 16 series).

DeshGujarat