Commuters irked as iron poles on Ajni RoB causing traffic jams
| Date :06-Nov-2019 |
A scene of traffic jam during peak evening hours on Ajni railway overbridge (RoB) (Right) Criss-cross situation due to slow moving traffic causing confusion at square on Congress Nagar side of Ajni RoB. (Pic by Satish Raut)
By Sagar Mohod :
Affixation of iron poles on Ajni railway overbridge (RoB) is causing impediment in the smooth flow of traffic to and from the bridge as jams have become a daily affair during the peak morning and evening time. Short term measures on part of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) is resulting in miseries for commuters as the very idea has turned out to be irrational and impracticable. While no doubt heavy vehicles movement needed to be controlled but not at the cost of creating obstruction for free flow of traffic through the RoB. NMC ignored the suggestion of height gauges citing high cost and instead went for conservative way of affixing iron poles for controlling movement of heavy vehicles.
Vehicles slowing down as they edge past the iron poles on Ajni RoB due to narrow gap. (Pics by Satish Raut)
However, these iron poles are causing problem as invariably they are obstructing smooth movement while earlier no jams were witnessed on the spot, said people who have to move through the road daily. Congestion is the order of day at either ends of RoB that is over 100 years old and is due for replacement. However due to paucity of funds with NMC, Railways is taking measures for increasing life of the stone RoB. It hired Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT) whose primary structural audit revealed need for destressing RoB and they also added that structure has weakened. They also suggested temporarily banning movement of heavy vehicles to undertake study of vibration analysis so as to determine what effect it has on RoB with them and without their movement. So after much persuasion civic officials did woke up to their responsibility, however, only to create multiple problems insistence on low cost measure, that is iron poles. While light vehicles, especially four wheelers can pass through the RoB, their speed however gets dead slow while edging past these poles as just enough space is available to accommodate them.
This results in piling of vehicles on either sides, that is one on Ajni colony and other towards the newly-formed square adjoining railway station. The idea is ill-conceived as no thought was given by civic administration to problem that would emerge at Ajni RoB due to iron poles, said Rajiv Jagtap, Vice-President, Janmanch, the city-based premier social organisation. Everyday is thus nightmare for those using the RoB as everyone gets cautious while going past the poles to avoid hitting the iron poles that could result in substantial damage to vehicles. Buses carrying school students and also those of NMC have to take a big detour to move on either part of city, the Southern and Eastern parts of city and criss-crossing to Western end. This is resulting is wastage of time as travel time has increased and also resulting in pressure on other roads, stated Dr Gajanan Zade, citizen activist.
Why should common man suffer all the times, he asked further? The civic body now needs to take urgent steps to go ahead with second part of rectification measures wherein the extra tar layer on RoB is needed to be scraped. Thereafter VNIT team would again conduct second round of audit and measure where the RoB’s load bearing capacity, If the report is positive then the restriction on movement of heavy vehicles would be withdrawn and normalcy restored on the Ajni RoB. Commuters would till then continue to face problems at Ajni RoB as not everyone can by-pass it.