As many as eight accidents have taken place in the last one week. On Sunday, four persons were killed in two mishaps. Two youths were killed near Maliyasan village after a bus hit the chagda (an autorickshaw-like vehicle) in which they were travelling. In another incident, the driver and the cleaner of a truck were killed when it collided with another near Vadod village.

On Sunday night, one person was seriously injured when an Eagle Travels bus from Vadodara to Rajkot rammed into a truck abandoned in the middle of the road, between Bagodara and Limdi. The bus driver, however, was able to keep his vehicle from skidding off the highway. Otherwise, the casualty figure couldhave been much higher.

Sudhir Dabhi, executive engineer of the National Highway 8-A sub-division of the public works department (PWD), said that repair would be completed in two or three months. He claimed that the department had put up road signs to warn drivers at various places. "It shouldn't cause much confusion," he said.

But the signboards are missing at several places. Often, the only sign of a diversion is a line of stones or concrete slabs across the road. They are not visible from a distance, particularly at night. Similarly, there are no clear signs to indicate the point where the other track is open.

In the absence of road signs, says Rajinder Bhatia, a frequent traveller to Vadodara, the highway has become "treacherous". Drivers realise at the last moment that they have to change track and they make a turn at high speed, often leading to fatal accidents.

Incidentally, the highway patrol is rarely seen on this dangerous road. The much-publicised mobile hospital, which was launched withmuch fanfare at Limdi last year, remains almost non-functional on the Limbdi-Rajkot stretch.

Narendra Rao, a policeman, who visits Limbdi often, says that it was difficult to contact the hospital by telephone from the highway. "But whenever the hospital was alerted in time, it reacted quickly," Rao said.