A damaged stretch of NH-5 in Balasore. Telegraph picture

Balasore, July 22: A stretch of road on NH-5 near a level crossing will be renovated soon by the railways and National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) jointly following an intervention by a local court.

The court of sub-divisional judicial magistrate recently has directed the divisional manager of the South-Eastern Railway to address the repair the stretch within three months. North Odisha Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NOCCI) has filed a petition in the court of sub-divisional magistrate making both South-Eastern Railway and NHAI as parties after the stretch was unattended for a long period.

“The stretch near Bampada level crossing was left midway during the construction of four laning of the national highway. Although we approached both NHAI as well as South-Eastern Railway, none of them responded stating the patch didn’t belong to either. It was no one’s baby,” said NOCCI president Devasis Mahanti .

“Accidents have become the order of day in the stretch while it was causing a serious inconvenience for the commuters. Finally, we filed a criminal case in the court of sub-divisional magistrate. The court directed railways to look into the issue within three months,” said Mahanti.

A meeting was convened by additional district magistrate Akshya Mohanty and was attended by the representatives of South-Eastern Railway, NHAI, local MLA and the tehsildar to sort out the issue.

“The stretch would be made motorable by the NHAI and South-Eastern Railway. The NHAI has already placed Rs 1.1 crore with South-Eastern Railway for the repair and renovation of the road. The rest of the amount would be spent by railways,” said local tehsildar Manas Padhi.

“The amount would be spent primarily for levelling of the road with the NH on either sides of the level crossing,” he said.

“There would be speed breakers on either side and for better illumination high mast lights would be fitted,” said deputy collector Binoy Mohanty.