Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Jan 28: The chaotic situation, which the commuters are facing everyday on majority of the roads in the Winter Capital city, clearly demonstrates that management of traffic has become second fiddle for the cops, who are usually found indulging only in making challans in order to meet the targets of revenue realization given by the higher-ups.
The efficient management of traffic has emerged as a most challenging aspect in view of ever increasing traffic and shrinking roads especially in the winter capital city but this important duty has completely been ignored by cops in blue, who are either seen making challans of violators or ensuring safe passage to the cavalcades of Ministers and other VIPs.
The high degree of professionalism, which the senior officers of Traffic Police are boasting of, can be seen only in challaning the vehicles but not in the case of rashly and negligently driven mini-buses and wrongly parked vehicles. The mad rush among the field functionaries of Traffic Police about collecting as many as possible revenue and ignoring the basic duty is not only leading to traffic chaos on those roads but also compelling the commuters to themselves regulate traffic to make way for their destinations.
This situation was seen on Janipur-Ambphalla, Janipur-Sarwal, Paloura-Patoli-Sarwal, Subash Nagar-Rehari, Talab Tillo-Canal Road-Jewel Chowk roads and stretch of flyover leading to a crossing behind Civil Secretariat on Monday. Despite remaining trapped in traffic jam on Janipur-Ambphalla, Janipur-Sarwal, Paloura-Patoli-Sarwal and Subash Nagar-Rehari roads for more than two hours the commuters didn’t find any cop in blue coming forward to clear the jamming.
Finally, some vehicle operators with the help of shopkeepers of these areas started performing the duties of Traffic Police and managed to clear vehicles. In the meantime, the cops from concerned police stations and police posts too started performing the traffic management duty and after more than two hours the order was restored on roads of these areas.
The chaos on these roads was the outcome of reckless driving by the mini-bus operators, who according to the people are ‘dearer’ to the cops in blue and are rarely taken to task despite blatantly violating the traffic rules.
“No doubt challaning the violators of rules is also must but the same should not be at the cost of traffic management, which has assumed much importance as lopsided growth especially in city of Jammu has seen the vehicular population run many times more than the available infrastructure”, said the people, who are facing chaos and confusion on roads every day before reaching their respective destinations.
Pointing towards the removal of traffic lights at several locations, they said, “at that time it was stated by the higher-ups of the Traffic Police that cops can better regulate the traffic. But the situation on ground clearly indicates that they have been given instructions only to make challans at the cost of their basic duty”.
When contacted, SSP Traffic Jammu, Manmohan Singh said, “keeping in view the magnitude of vehicular traffic on busy roads additional manpower would be deployed for better traffic management”.
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