This story is from December 1, 2016

Change from temple to tide over snarls on toll plaza

Change from temple to tide over snarls on toll plaza
(Representative image)
GURUGRAM: Having arranged for change worth Rs 5 lakh from Gurgaon’s Sheetla Mata Temple Shrine Board National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) officials are bracing for a deluge of commuters who will be passing through the Kherki Daula toll plaza on Friday, looking to use their defunct Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes to pay toll.
Meanwhile, the district administration has issued an advisory, making 60% of the 22 lanes at the Kherki Daula toll plaza cashless, and only the remaining 40% to accept cash.

In anticipation, NHAI has made available 85 point-of-sale (POS) machines at the toll booths for those who can pay by debit or credit cards. The officials have already set up charging points for the machines, to ensure there is no disruption in online payment. Besides, QR code will also be available for those who want to pay via e-wallets Paytm and MobiKwik. The Highway Saathi app can also be used for prepaid tag payments.
Apprehensive of the Kherki Daula toll plaza running out of change on Friday, when NHAI restarts collecting toll, the officials have received change worth Rs 5 lakh from the shrine board. The board will continue to provide them with Rs 3 lakh in short change every day for the next few days, to tide over the demonetisation crisis.
However, the question is, if these provisions will be enough to tide over traffic snarls if they were as bad as those witnessed at Kherki Daula on November 9, the day after the demonetisation policy was put to force.
“The district administration has assigned a duty magistrate, who will be stationed at the NHAI control room. He will be linked to regional officers via video conferencing. This way, the officials can issue immediate orders in case of crisis,” said Ashok Sharma, project director, NHAI.
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