NHAI Adds No-Entry Signs After 70,000 Challans

GURUGRAM: NHAI has started installing no-entry and speed-reducing signages at highway entry and exit points in the city after traffic police issued about 70,000 challans for no-entry violations on the Dwarka Expressway and NH-48 between January and July. Officials said the boards target two-wheelers, three-wheelers, non-motorised vehicles, tractors and hydraulic trailers that keep slipping onto access-controlled stretches.

Around 5,945 more challans were issued across Gurugram in August, showing the pressure did not ease after the mid-year tally. Access-controlled sections of the Delhi-Gurugram corridor and the Dwarka Expressway are meant to keep slower and restricted categories off the main carriageway. When those vehicles enter anyway, crash risk rises at merges and exit ramps, and enforcement teams burn hours on the same junctions.

NHAI officials said no-entry boards have already gone up at two highway openings linked to NH-48 and the Dwarka Expressway. Slow-down and accident-prone-area markings are scheduled within a week on the Gurugram-Sohna road. Similar boards and road markings are planned at other spots picked from crash records and field inspections across the three corridors.

Road safety committee push

The district road safety committee had flagged, in its July review, that some no-entry boards sat only at intermediate points along the main carriageway and were easy to miss before a rider was already on the expressway. NHAI was asked to examine placement. Separately, the authority was directed to raise iron grills on the central median of the Gurugram-Sohna road to deter unsafe pedestrian crossings. Officials said increasing grill height further was found unfeasible at some stretches, so signage and markings remain the near-term fix.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Prateek Gehlot, at a general parade on 31 August, told traffic personnel to stay alert against overloaded trucks and two-wheelers entering restricted stretches on NH-48, Dwarka, KMP and Delhi-Mumbai expressway links. Manpower cannot sit at every ramp all day. Visible boards at the approach, paired with continued challans, are meant to cut accidental entries before a rider is deep into the controlled lane.

Village connectors that feed Sohna Road and Dwarka service lanes remain the weak links. A tractor or e-rickshaw that misses a faded stencil finds itself on a high-speed carriageway with no easy exit. Fresh boards help only if they stand before the physical gore point, lit at night, and repeated after each diversion that construction crews create.

Commuters who rely on service roads still need clear, early warnings. A board after the merge helps little. The test for this round of installations is whether a first-time rider on a scooter or a tractor driver approaching from a village connector sees the restriction before the barrier line, not after the challan printer starts.