Lone home guard in a veritable road rage!

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Nov 21: The phrase ‘accidents will happen’ seems to have many takers among the traffic magers in Guwahati and this is one of the reasons why accidents do take place in the city at an alarming rate. Let alone accidents, such a mentality leads to many lapses in traffic magement that consumes the valuable time of commuters and others who often fail to reach their respective destitions due to avoidable road rages.

Coming at the helm of affairs as Guwahati Traffic SP, Amanjit Kaur talked much on smooth traffic magement in the city. She brought changes in traffic planning. While some of her changes have yielded positive results, some others have failed utterly. She, however, has tried a lot and come out with mixed results.

Unlike the me suggests, Beltola Tiniali literally has as many as nine lanes (routes) for diverging vehicles to ply on. From 2 pm to 3.30 pm when schools break the Tiniali teems with vehicles in all hues. Hundreds of school buses come to the spot during that period in all working days. The Tiniali has a city bus stop there. It seems to teem with at least 500 vehicles during this hour – from nose to tail.

Given the poor traffic magement in the city today’s traffic srl is not at all surprising. The commuters and others in the city are hard-bitten having seen such traffic srls every now and then.  What, however, surprises one is: only one home guard was seen to tackle the situation! Is it humanely possible for one to control such a chaos single-handedly? He had none to help him out. He just kept his baton wielding and whistling the hooter, with little success to discipline the drivers who seemed to be in unruly me-first competitions. A veritable and ugly road rage beyond control!

This scene is very common on the very spot from 2 pm to 3.30 pm in all working days. Every havildar in the city traffic police knows how unruly the situation is at Beltola Tiniali during this hour. The city traffic magers know it well that the situation at the Tiniali during this hour is not one that can be tackled by only one personnel. And then what leads them to deploy only one home guard at the spot? Either one home guard or one traffic policeman is seen, as often as not, to be on duty at the spot. If this is due to paucity of manpower in the State police force, why do not the authorities concerned move the government seeking recruitments in the force? Everything should have a limit – the traffic magers of the city cannot keep the commuters and other people of the city feeding the same bitter pill – lack of manpower does not allow us to do much – indefinitely.

Some scenes of the city do keep many thinking without being able to find suitable answers. When St. Mary’s School breaks, all traffic police personnel are seen to be in prompt action to tackle the situation. Even though they cannot solve the problem totally, they do ease the traffic srl there to a large extent. However, such promptness on the part of the traffic magers of the city is mysteriously missing when Srimanta Sankardev Academy on the GS Road breaks at Dispur. The GS Road is often blocked when the school breaks.

What seems tangible is that the traffic magers should pin-point the chaotic spots in the city that need more people to control the heavy rush of vehicles and people, and man them accordingly. Traffic cannot be allowed to go haywire in any place as time is considered the most precious.  Does such a practice on the part of the traffic magers augur well for Guwahati that has already been listed as one of the smart cities in the country?