Smart cards at Odisha toll plazas soon

Reported by Santosh Jagdev

Bhubaneswar, Jan 18:

Long queues at toll plazas would be a thing of the past in Odisha. Smart cards, to be introduced in the state, would help commuters avoid long queues and traffic congestion, president of Indian Roads Congress (IRC) Sunil Bhowmik said on the sidelines of platinum jubilee celebrations of the IRC which kicked off here at Janta Maidan today.

IRC

“We would introduce smart card system for the vehicles to pay their toll tax in a smart way. In the first phase, the facilities would be installed in the Rourkela-Sambalpur road in Odisha,” he added.

IRC’s State Steering Committee Chairman and Works Department Secretary Nalini Kanta Pradhan said they would upgrade the existing software at the toll gates and introduce a new method through which sensors would automatically capture a vehicle’s license plate and debit the toll from the vehicle owner’s smart card account.

“There is no need to pay cash and wait for receipt from the employees of the toll gate which is time consuming. The sensors fixed at the tollgate would do all these works smartly,” Pradhan said.

This system would further facilitate smooth traffic flow on the roads, he said adding, the new system would be used in the Rourkela-Sambalpur road corridor by the end of this year.

While briefing media persons, Director General of Roads SN Das said, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways would construct cement concrete roads for state and national highways replacing bitumen roads as cement concrete roads will increase life span of the road to over 30 years.

“Life span of bituminous road is 15 years and needs attention for repair within four to five years, but the cement concrete roads last longer and don’t seek attention for its repair in 10-15 years. So the ministry would focus on concrete cement roads in the country,” Das added.

The five-day long conference would discuss mainly on five things, road safety and minimising of accidental hazards, construction and maintenance of roads and bridges in a modern way, safety of environment and to promote the use of standard specifications and to propose specifications.

Around 4000 participants of civil infrastructure professionals, members of IRC and renowned highway and bridge engineering experts from the state and the Centre, public and private sector organisations across India and abroad would attend the five-day long technical and commercial sessions in the congress, IRC president informed.

Besides, over 100 stalls erected by various companies displayed road construction equipments and other materials used in it at the technical exhibition ‘Pradarshanee’.

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