Traffic in twin capital cities of the State is in a chaotic situation. Huge increase in the number of private and public vehicles plying on the narrow and congested roads of the two cities have disrupted life to the extent that nobody expects to reach his or her destination safe and in time once stepping out of home. Absence of planning is made worse by total inability and incompetence of the traffic police to control and manage city traffic. There is total lack of traffic sense among the drivers as well as those who regulate traffic. One is unable to imagine where is this going to lead us to. There are no plans of widening the city roads; there are no plans of building by-passes and subways; there are no plans of constructing overhead bridges for the pedestrians; there is no concrete and decisive programme of removing encroachment of footpaths; there is no seriousness about removing the hawkers from creating congestion in traffic and there is no punishment for those who grossly violate traffic rules like parking at odd places, stopping in the middle of the road or mini buses stopping at will without caring whether there is a bus stop or not. The worst is that after spending crores of rupees for installing traffic control lights, these installations are dysfunctional.
In particular, Jammu traffic is presenting a glorious picture of chaos and confusion. The traffic police often look as helpless onlookers allowing the vehicle drivers use their freewill. And the senior officers of the Traffic Department are leisurely sitting in their air conditioned office rooms. Traffic jams in the city have become every day routine and people have now stopped complaining about it because complaints are not heard nor remedied. The story of traffic on National Highways is not different. Only recently we have reflected in these columns the sordid story of road safety policy. However, there appears a faint silver lining around the dark scenario. It is learnt that the State Transport Department has settled all the technical observations of the Union Ministry of Surface Transport in regard to establishing a multi-crore high-tech Institute of Driving in Jammu. At the same time another major project of setting up an Inspection and Certification Centre for complete scientific examining of mechanical fitness of the vehicles is also in the pipeline and Detailed Project Report of the same has been sent to the Ministry of Surface Transport for its formal clearance as well as release of funds while land for this project has been earmarked at Samba. Similar institutes were proposed to be established in the periphery of Srinagar city also but that project is still hanging fire owing to non availability of land. The Jammu project has cleared all the stages and it is now set to be in the stage of inception.
This is a long range project meaning that the accredited institutes will train people desirous of learning to drive various kinds of vehicles. They will go through the mill and then the Institute of Inspection and Certification will issue certificates validating their training in driving and maintenance. At the same time, the certification institute will do away with the problem of passing the vehicles as roadworthy. Previously, certification had come under severe criticism and it was considered as one of the sources of corruption in the Road Transport Department. The Government of India has agreed to release 14.40 crore rupees for the Institute of Inspection and Certification and 35 crore rupees for the Driving Institute. Once these two institutes become fully functional, two important problems of road traffic will be solved once for all. First is the problem of drivers not having accredited driving licenses or using fake licenses leading to road accidents, and the second problem is of plying unfit vehicles on the roads which often become the cause of road accidents resulting in fatalities. We hope that authorities will speed up the installation of these two institutes in Jammu and also take steps to procure land for similar institutes in Srinagar. This will be a major step in improving the safety of road traffic and doing away the logjams that have become the bane of smooth and safe traffic. At the same time, it is also expected that the Road Transport Department will take revolutionary steps to prepare a blue print for total reformation of city traffic in the twin cities of Jammu and Srinagar.
State Transport Department is not the only department which has to carry the burden of regulating the traffic and removing its bottlenecks. Objectively speaking, modernizing city traffic either in Srinagar or in Jammu cities is a multi-departmental venture. Funding and planning are at the root of the project. Therefore the Government has to make it sure that funds are provided and perfect planning is there. It can seek advice from the Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT) Pune. Actually, the Transport Department shall have to constitute an expert committee to conduct survey of traffic conditions in both the cities and then submit a compr-ehensive report on road widening, bypasses, tunnels, subways, overhead bridges, control of traffic at crossings, proper control and checking by traffic police and daily assessment of traffic regulating mechanism in the cities. The Committee should also examine why the electronic signals installed on crossing at a huge expense became dysfunctional within days of installation.
Most importantly, there has to be full scale transformation in the culture of traffic police establishment. Corruption is endemic. We do not know what steps the authorities can suggest to uproot corruption from this department. In our opinion unless exemplary punishment is given to the tainted and corrupt functionaries, corruption may not be eradicated. The culture of dedicated services needs to be inculcated in the traffic police staff impressing upon them that their negligence or dereliction of duty is bound to result in unnatural death of innocent and precious lives.
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