Service road on highway to Mumbai out of bounds

NASHIK: Motorists plying on the service road along the Mumbai-Agra Highway (NH 3) towards Mumbai are a disappointed lot. Even as an ingress point has been constructed near hotel Seven Heavens and a signboard has also been put up, the road to take the highway from the service road has been closed, creating much inconvenience for the commuters.
A few months ago, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had thrown open the ingress point near Gabriel Company to prevent the motorists coming from Garware Point from taking the congested service road to access the highway.The motorists, however, are now awaiting the opening of the ingress point near hotel Seven Heavens.
Due to the lack of an ingress road, the twin service roads on either side of the highway would witness heavy traffic during peak hours, while the highway from Vilholi to Dwarka would hardly have any flow of vehicles, thereby nullifying the whole purpose of widening the highway. The NHAI thus decided to construct additional access points near Hotel Seven Heavens and Gabriel Company to facilitate the motorists. But these access points have still not been made open; they are awaiting the nod from the NHAI.
Residents of Vinaynagar, Deepalinagar, Kamodnagar, Rajivnagar, Ranenagar and other nearby places will also be able to access the highway from Hotel Seven Heavens once the ingress point is made accessible.
The work of the construction of the ingress point was taken about a six to nine months back, but has been stopped in-between, leaving the work half complete. The NHAI officials, who did not want to come on record, said there were some technical reasons for stopping the work. Sources in the toll company said while they had constructed the ingress point near the Gabriel company a few months ago without any notice of order of change of scope from the NHAI, they would only take up the remaining work near hotel Seven Heavens after receiving the change of scope notice, followed by the change of scope order. This would ensure that the company got paid for the work it did.
The NHAI also has planned to construct an exit point near Lekhanagar which would help the motorists coming into the city from Pimpalgaon, Melagoan and Dhule. At present, vehicles taking the elevated corridor from Adgaon have to take the service road at the Dwarka junction to enter the city. If they pass the Dwarka junction, they have to drive at least 7km for a U-turn from Garware point to enter the city. Since the gap between Dwarka and Garware point is too huge, the NHAI has decided to construct an exit point near Lekhanagar.
The complications in the construction of the ingress point have only left motorists wondering when the actual work of the exit point would begin.