ORDEAL called traffic jam

By Shirish Borkar

“Where are you?” “Stuck in a traffic jam.” This was the common conversation especially in the afternoon and the evening hours of Tuesday, between people who were to reach for a meeting or delivering goods or on their way home. As the traffic snarls prolonged, conversations boiled up into irritation and then anger towards poor traffic management in the city. Subsequently, City Police came under severe criticism from almost all corners for its utter failure in traffic management on Tuesday. Traffic snarls and jams were witnessed in every nook and corner of the Second Capital with police simply concentrating on VVIP and VIP movements and only in and around Vidhan Bhavan for the ongoing Winter Session of the Maharashtra Legislature.

The officers and men attached to Traffic Branch were seen hapless as they could not effectively regulate the vehicular traffic that was snarled up in almost all directions, particularly at Sitabuldi, near Zero Mile, Sadar and Shaheed Gowari flyovers, Amravati Road, Civil Lines, Ramdaspeth, Dharampeth, East High Court Road, Akashwani Square-Maharajbagh, University Library to Central Mall, and areas on either sides of Wardha Road. Even police vehicles and ambulances were seen stuck in traffic jams. The dug up stretches of various roads and thoroughfares, haphazard parking, wrong side riding/driving added to the woes of commuters. People from across Vidarbha and other parts of the State belonging to different political parties and social organisations, who had come to participate in the morchas to press for their various demands, had parked their four-wheelers on the roadside, thereby reducing the road width available for flow of traffic, and causing inconvenience to the commuters. Hundreds of commuters were stuck for hours as vehicular traffic was gridlocked at many places. Two-wheeler riders who were stuck on roads in Civil Lines and other nearby places, started using footpaths to move forward.

After hundreds of activists of Nationalist Congress Party, which had organised a rally to mark culmination of the Yuwa Sangharsh Yatra at Zero Mile, and Maharashtra Rajya Juni Pension Sanghatana started pouring in at Sitabuldi, the traffic police closed the Shaheed Gowari flyover for smooth movement of the vehicles of the VIPs and VVIPs. This led to traffic congestion on all the roads in Sitabuldi, Dhantoli, Ramdaspeth, and Civil Lines. Assistant Commissioner of Police (Retd) Anil Bobde, who had earlier served the Traffic Branch for a long time, was of the view that the police should have conducted minutest study on the outskirts of Nagpur and also within the city before finalising the traffic arrangements for the Winter Session.

Similarly, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Retd) Jamil Ahmed, who had also previously served the Traffic Branch, was of the same view. Local officers or constables attached to the Traffic Branch, who know the city well, should accompany the police personnel coming from different parts of the State for the Winter Session, for effective traffic management. Some of the victims of Tuesday’s traffic jams at various places told ‘The Hitavada’ that such traffic chaos and mismanagement by the police during the Winter Session was shocking. Whether the Traffic Branch would overcome such inconvenience to commuters still remains a billion dollar question.