VELLORE: National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has lodged a police complaint after the milestones with place names written in Hindi were replaced with English on the Vellore- Katpadi stretch of NH 75.
The NHAI had replaced the place names in English with Hindi some days ago, which was strongly opposed by political parties and organisations. Following this, the work related to writing place names on milestones was stalled for the last seven days, leaving about 40 milestones (almost 40 km) from K V Kuppam to Bathirapalli with no markings.
The NH 75 passes through Vellore district for about 51.8 km, from Bathirapalli till Vellore bus stand via Gudiyatham and K V Kuppam.
Though the Centre and NHAI are yet to make any official announcement on the objections raised by the political parties, the district administration has taken note of the objection by reportedly erasing the names in Hindi and using English instead.
In his complaint lodged with the Viruthampattu Police on April 7, NHAI Vellore Assistant Divisional Engineer G Ramamurthy did not mention anybody, but said the place names in Hindi, written as per the NHAI guidelines, have been erased.
When contacted, NHAI officials claimed that stones have no markings because they were being cleaned. They also denied receiving any direction to halt works on writing the names on milestones.