During the last couple of decades, the volume of traffic has increased manifold. Our Valley, especially the city of Srinagar, is not an exception. Although, the volume of traffic, the number of vehicles and the consequent pollution are not worrisome as compared to the bigger cities out there, for example Delhi, yet the increasing volume of traffic and the number of vehicles has been posing grave concerns. The collective deterioration of traffic has been brought about by mismanagement, bad driving and parking etiquettes and unstoppable VIP and Police movement. Amid all this mess and chaos, the bold and honest intervention of SSP Traffic, Basant Rath, has changed the order of the day. Although this has resulted in positive changes, yet there is a flipside to it. The department is not ready with alternatives; it has not spread adequate awareness and there are still people in power who remain unstoppable on roads. The need of the hour is to set a platform ready and then induce the changes.
It has been seen that Traffic Police nowadays is on a terrible spree of imposing fines, dismantling illegal structures, kicking wrongly parked scooters, imposing fines on wrongly parked cars (as per them) and what not! However, the point I want to make is that there are some ambiguous spots where a driver gets confused as to park his vehicle or not. The places where people have been parking their vehicles for decades suddenly stand banned. Although, the Traffic Cops have said that they would identify road-side parking lots and draw colourful demarcating lines, but, the decision has not been given widespread publicity. The decision has not been adequately brought to the knowledge of the common man. I want to ask a simple question: How would a driver know whether a specific spot is an allowed parking spot or not if he is not informed about the same? You have not drawn any lines and you are pasting a fine-sheet over the wiper of a car and leaving the spot like the Singham of Hindi cinema. I suggest Traffic Police should first devise a sound plan, then give widespread publicity to the plan, receive public approval and then start imposing fines on the violations. In the absence of a properly set plan and widespread information, a driver always remains in a conundrum as to where to park and where not to.
One more important aspect of the traffic story is the movement of VIPs, Police and Army. I am a daily commuter. I see how these sections of out society move on roads. The VIP’s police jeep-with a cop holding a red flag and another cop with a whistle between his lips-drives past you in such a terrible hurry that if you don’t give up driving in your lane, the VIP’s guards may kill you, literally! Then the VIP’s car-with dark opaque glass and a draped piece of iron affixed onto the side of the bonnet-passes by unstoppably; nobody dares to stop the VIP who violates every rule without a slight sense of guilt. Our Police jeeps are Kings of the road; they would drive wherever they want. The general public is left gazing at them. The army vehicles have their own style. They have huge sticks in their hands and they direct public vehicles to move here and there and make way for them. I see army trucks occupying both the lanes of the highway and drive at a speed of nearly 20 km per hour which results in a long jam. The crux of the story is that common man is an easy target for the traffic cops. They won’t dare to stop a violating VIP or a Police jeep. They should first set their home in order and then make common people their targets.
I would also like to draw the attention of the managers of traffic towards unnecessary bottlenecks created by cops. Take the example of Parimpora crossing. Recently, a wide road was built starting from Parimpora crossing towards HMT crossing and beyond. It was such a big relief for the people. But, alas, the legends of JKP created those wide boards made up of iron, with the words “J&K Police at your service” written on them in bold red letters, and inserted them at equal distances on each lane. Now, all vehicles moving about quite conveniently in atleast three lanes on one side suddenly face a long bottleneck; suddenly a four lane road gets converted into a single lane passage with JKP cops directing people to move here and there and this way the story comes back to the point where it started: long traffic jams. This is one such example. Such impediments created by the police can be found everywhere. This leads to nothing but inconvenience to the people and mismanagement of traffic.
Postscript: Unless and until the evils discussed above are eradicated, traffic won’t get streamlined. The need of the hour is to make some ground work first and then devise a plan and inform people about the same. In our city-centre, parking is a grave issue that needs to be addressed to. Recently, SMC constructed a parking space with a huge capacity. Such parking spaces should be constructed at other spots too. While imposing fines over the violations and disgracing drivers indecently, its ill effects over the business community should not be ignored. Remember, Police is for people; public first; the cops have no right to misbehave, in one or the other way, with the people. Kicking away a scooter, smashing a hawker’s set-up, throwing away a biker’s key and other such typical-south-Indian-movie moves are not a solution. Take people along on the path to perfection.
(The author is MBA, NET, IBPS-CWE. He’s Officer Scale I in a leading PSU Bank. The views are personal.)