There seems no end to chronic traffic chaos in the city of temples. It has become a nightmare for the commuters, passengers; vehicle owners and the traffic police one and all. Put succinctly, the number of vehicles plying on the roads is increasing rapidly but the roads and streets remain the same. These are not widened as there is no scope to widen them. Some flyovers built in recent years have eased traffic congestion to some extent but the intensity of the problem remains. The narrow streets are further squeezed by street venders and encroachers and the administration including the police has become helpless in tackling the situation. Even the High Court many a time intervened and desired the Traffic Department to bring about reforms that would mean some relief to the commuters. But even its pleas have gone unheeded. It is true that all blame cannot be brought to the doorsteps of the traffic police. There are numerous agencies involved in the matter and unless there is a comprehensive scheme of modifying and modernizing entire traffic system, we may have to remain content with what we have at the moment.
Hearing a PIL filed with the High Court, a Division Bench touched upon various aspects of traffic disaster in the city like Comprehensive Traffic Management Plan, control of air pollution, ambient air monitoring stations, etc. Traffic Police submitted that the Department had worked out a temporary and a long term plan for bringing about changes in the traffic system of the city with the objective of reducing traffic jams particularly at vulnerable and congested places. We understand that the Traffic Department wants other concerned departments also to collaborate with it in improving traffic situation in the city. As a temporary measure the foremost thing to be done is to remove unauthorized encroachment of footpaths and unauthorized parking of private vehicles by the roadside. The irony is that the Traffic Department did not wake up at proper time and bring full pressure on the administration to build parking space while the number of vehicles was ever increasing. Parking has become a big headache for the Traffic Police. Unless there are multi-storey parking structures the problem will not find any solution because there is no open space in the city surroundings. In the same way encroachment by roadside shopkeepers and cart vendors is another bottleneck in smooth trafficking on Jammu streets. The Court has already ordered that these unauthorized encroachments should be removed. The question is of practical implementation of court orders.
Again it is a matter of great regret that the Traffic Department is not paying attention to pollution control owing to the plying of vehicles that have no emission control system. Jammu city air is becoming densely polluted. Even, the Traffic Police does not pay any attention to noise pollution. Minibuses plying in the city are horrible in noise pollution. Traffic Police has completely failed to control this nuisance. Likewise, more than a crore of rupees was spent by the Municipal Corporation in installing Red Lights on crucial squares in the city. But these are mostly dysfunctional and nobody cares to repair them. Even when these were functional, drivers paid scant attention to them. It is because of lack of traffic culture among our people. Finally, what plan the Traffic Police will have which it calls long term comprehensive plan has not been revealed so far. However, the basic question is how the crowded streets widened can and who will bear the enormous expenditure it entails.
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