Siddharth Sadralia
Jammu, Sept 17: The Frankenstein idea of installation of traffic lights that struck the govt minds with lightning inspiration couple of years back have darkened into oblivion with nearly Rs 250 lakhs project having washed down the drains.
The state exchequer that was spent lavishly, had few stakeholders also in the league, who after the untimely failure of the project, have just the sorry figure to cut rather than coming up with some substantial rejoinder as to what went wrong.
While the major chunk of the infrastructure erected at various points in the city show up ominous face to the commuters and vehicle pliers, the people at large in Jammu city are of the other opinion that now disapproves to their liking for having the traffic lights objecting in their smooth plying.
"The insensate waste done by the government through our hard earned money, instead of providing us traffic relief added to miseries as lights were installed at such reckless points in the city that created bottlenecks. Take instances of those at Ambphalla junction, Kacchi Chawni and parade ground. It seemed that executing agencies as well as the administration was in haste to utilize the funds at the heck of doing so. Today all stand defunct," said a daily commuter from Ambphalla to parade ground to attend his office.
The traffic light project was undertaken by the JMC at a cost of Rs 250 lakh and a total of 30 lights were installed in the city in a phased manner.
In the project, 60 points of Jammu have to be covered for installing the signals in two phases. In the first phase, signals were set up at 30 places including Satwari Chowk, Gangyal, Green Belt, Gole Market, Bikram Chowk, Jewel, Panama Chowk, Narwal, KC Chowk, Shakuntala Chowk, Rehari and Janipur besides other crossings of the city.
M/S Onyux Electronic, New Delhi, which was entrusted with the job of installation, commissioning, operation and maintenance of traffic signal lights for period of 2 years in Jammu city, was also reluctant to relocate the lights.
Jammu Municipality, Traffic Police and Transport Department were at the loggerheads over the relocation of more than half a dozen traffic lights, which were kept on blinker mode for about a year.
The project, sooner after it becoming functional got surrounded by the controversies for running a faulty procedure and unable to cater to the needs of the traffic regulatory.
Undue favour by the government agencies also were accounted into the unfair dealing of the system that was held at crossroads between the concerned agencies and the department.
While a committee comprising Commissioner JMC, DIG, Traffic Jammu, Deputy Commissioner Jammu, and superintendent engineers of Road and Building and Power Development Department (PDD) was constituted that arose to a general consensus for removing the lights from all such tedious pegs for creating chaos and indiscipline in the traffic movement, but the money involved in the rehashing ran above a crore with the project being left to its non-functional mode.
"The traffic signal at Green Belt park turnabout was a total chaos when it worked. Movement got restricted and the confusions prevailed. But since the lights have gone off, smooth plying of vehicles is common phenomenon there with any ado," said a private employee Sanjay Kaul.
A senior traffic cop also confirmed with a contemptuous grin, "Traffic lights in Jammu were a Frankenstein idea with no management over its command. Since gone into oblivion, traffic is managing itself on the narrow cuts and curves of squeezing Jammu". |
