Overview
- More than 100 residents from villages along NH-48 wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking permission to die by suicide and listing five demands after weeks of gridlock.
- Villagers protested on Friday, saying a one-hour journey now takes five to six hours because of potholes and poor traffic management on the Mumbai–Ahmedabad corridor.
- Residents say authorities ignored an October 11–14 MBVV police order restricting heavy vehicles past Chinchoti Naka, triggering severe jams in the Naigaon–Chinchoti region.
- After the protest, MBVV commissioner Niket Kaushik closed the Chinchoti traffic branch and reassigned highway traffic management to the Vasai and Virar units.
- Activists report missed school exams, missed flights and hours-long delays for medical care, while the NHAI project director did not respond to media queries.