Chaos becomes new normal on Ajni RoB as commuters continue defying traffic norms
| Date :20-Jan-2023 |
By Sagar Mohod
Even after removal of the ‘hurdles’ by the authority to regulate vehicular movement on the Ajni railway overbridge (RoB), the smart alecs in society refuse to mend their ways and they end-up throwing spanner in the good work. These elements in the society it seems are working overtime to throw spanner in the good work done by the authorities. The tendency to undertake shortcuts means the efforts to streamline traffic on part of city police goes in vain. So till cops are on duty the discipline is maintained and in their absence people throw all traffic norms to the wind and end up creating a mess for themselves as well as for others.
A few days back, officials of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) undertook corrective measures and made some fine tuning on Congress Nagar end of RoB. The vertical poles meant to prevent entry of heavy vehicles were uprooted to allow speedier movement. The measure though half hearted still it manage to restore some order and avoid jams at entry point to RoB. Though it took quite a long time for the officials of civic body to woke-up from their deep slumber as the iron poles came into picture after earlier attempt, the overhead barriers, failed to work. The barriers were pulled down by errant drivers of heavy vehicles. Fed-up with repeated violation, the NMC went into for low cost solution, reducing width at entry point by placing vertical poles.
The move, however, was a recipe for traffic jams that became order of the day as daily commuters faced harrowing time during peak morning and evening hours, said Satish Yadav, he has a shop on other side of the Ajni bridge. Such was the mess at Ajni RoB that Traffic Control Branch of Nagpur City Police had to deploy handful of its men at one fixed point to untangle the daily jams and get the traffic moving. Much time was wasted in the process as the daily traffic flow of vehicles was quite in large numbers.
Since last one year the situation at Ajni RoB remained in a state of jam, as commuters had too put-up with severe inconvenience due to adamant stance of the NMC authorities who refused to listen to reason, said Manish Chandekar, a resident of Ajni who daily had to find a way-out through the jams. The problem with vertical poles was that drivers of four wheelers needed to slow down to avoid crashing into the poles.
The faulty decision of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) put the stability of Ajni RoB as the dead load on it was increasing day after day due to congestion as vehicular movement slowed down considerably. So it was more of a dangerous situation every day as the structural stability of the RoB was getting compromised.
Railway officials were appalled by the daily traffic jams and kept their fingers crossed. Although Central Railway had suggested a number of measures to undertake stability study for Ajni RoB, NMC went for cherry picking and only put-up vertical poles to deter entry of heavy vehicles.
However the situation improved at Ajni and traffic mess was lessened post visit of Commissioner of Police Amitesh Kumar to the spot a few days back. He spent half an hour at Ajni end of RoB and issued instructions to ensure that some order is restored so that citizens troubled are lessened. Subsequently, the vertical poles also disappeared overnight giving pleasant surprise for daily commuters.
Before removal of poles, the Traffic Control Branch made a slight change in traffic movement by asking people coming from Medical side to take left turn towards Chunabhatti. This prevented direct movement of vehicles in mid of square on Congress Nagar end where people would turn right for Dhantoli or moved ahead straight onto the Jail Road. The aim was to avoid criss-cross movement that was resulting in jams on Ajni railway station side of the Square. So one tangle was removed in the knot by the intervention of traffic cops. However from the very next day Nagpurians were back to their old ways, moving wrong side to avoid a slight detour at Ajni RoB entry point from Chunabhatti. In process the traffic mess was back to square one at the Congress Nagar end as citizens relished breaking the rules.
One could see even well educated persons trying to dodge the rule and taking a slight turn just after the barricades to avoid detour till Irrigation Department side. This means those breaking the rule was directly blocking the incoming traffic towards the RoB on Ajni side. So for the cops the hard work that went into convincing Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) to uproot the faulty mechanism to prevent entry of heavy vehicles relieved the ordinary travellers on the route. Now cops are again full time on duty at RoB point to avoid traffic jams.
Unmindful decision of authorities concerned
“Traffic on Ajni bridge has become a headache for the authorities as well as the public. Recently the road going towards FCI godowns from Ajni bridge has been barricaded by the Police. The unmindful decision forces the vehicle drivers trying to go straight take a left turn and then take a “U” turn and proceed on the wrong side of the road, which can result in accidents since the vehicles coming from Ajni railway station can hit the wrong side moving vehicles any moment. The police officers and police men on duty look totally helpless and just ignore it since as per them, they cannot panalize each and every vehicle rider for taking a wrong side “U” turn before taking a left turn to proceed further. The concerned authorities must act immediately in this case before any major accident takes place,” pointed out Kishan Sharma, senior citizen, noted writer and orator.