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| Traffic Jams: A new havoc | | | S.S. Rissam | 12/8/2011 10:39:10 PM |
| The days are over when tangas and city buses use to run in the Jammu city and when people use to reach to schools, colleges and offices by walking. Today Jammu city is facing severe road traffic problems. Daily we are stuck in long traffic jams which are witnessed at various places of Jammu city. The trend like metros has started in Jammu where people leave for their destination in quite advance as expecting traffic jams. The main reason for this is population, urbanization and increase in the number of two and four wheelers. Is govt. serious toward this problem? Is the concerned minister worried? No, says the answer because when their official cars move then all other vehicles are stopped & they pass by easily without getting the taste of traffic jams and getting a feel that things are quite normal. They are requested to come out on the road without their official cars and police men around them and then taste the flavor of traffic problem in Jammu these days which has started troubling every common man in Jammu. In spite of Govt's efforts to address this problem by promising to enhance the public transport system, widening the roads, constructing flyovers, the progress would not be satisfactory. The reason for it is the vast time they take to implement their promises. The day a promise is made and the day that promise is implemented has so much gap that the problem gets enough time to spread more easily & rapidly. Hence inconveniences due to traffic jams are still wide, deep and largely visible.
Every other day automobile and car manufacturing giants unveil a new model of their bike or car in Jammu as done at the national level. As a result with each passing day a new model adds to the number of vehicles present on the congested streets of Jammu. Earlier there was a time when ten thousand vehicles use to get registered at Jammu Regional Transport Office (RTO) every year but now that number has swollen to thirty thousand or more every year. As per latest statistics available in last 10 years 7,19,221 new vehicles have been registered in state. Though the revenue generation of the concerned department has been tremendous but are the authorities ready to tackle such a big no. of vehicles? Seems no, as the mess caused by the vehicles is growing every day. We cannot stop people from buying new vehicles but are there roads to accommodate such rising traffic in future? The high density of vehicles in Jammu is also responsible for the rise in the number of road accidents which are witnessed at times in Jammu city and mostly on highways where buses plunge into deep gorges. The area for parking vehicles, especially in Jammu is constantly shrinking as nothing much is done by the concerned authorities to deal with this rapidly growing vehicular population, instead boards are installed at all places not to park the vehicle causing difficulty for the people to understand where to keep the vehicle with which they have come out.
Traffic police department is using technology for controlling and monitoring the movement of vehicles at important and busy crossroads for which the department has taken the help of Close Circuit Television (CCTV) but of no use, as people without any fear are taking their cars and bikes to wrong sides and traffic police men keep watching without any effort as they are also the sufferers of this rising traffic in Jammu. We have a limited number of traffic policemen and it becomes virtually impossible for the traffic department to check all vehicles. Then the biggest obstacle for the traffic police of Jammu city comes where vehicles are Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) or Multi-Utility Vehicles (MUV) which are driven by people belonging to different political parties with party flag in front of the vehicles. These are the vehicles whose occupants are free to move in the city the way they want. At times such cars are seen parked at wrong places and even in no parking zones. What is more surprising is that when such vehicles cause long traffic jams police doesn't dare to take any action by towing away the vehicle as it is done with ordinary citizen very rapidly, Instead they start acting as a guard to that vehicle.
Vehicle emissions are responsible for rising air pollution in Jammu. No government effort by the concerned department to safeguard the environment has been enforced at the local level. We don't find anything which is a visible factor of that effort taken by the government . Exhaust from vehicles has made air quality of Jammu so poor that we feel suffocated at times in traffic jams. The rising number of vehicles has also left the traffic policemen gasping for fresh air. They are badly affected and a majority of them would surely be suffering from some ear, nose or throat (ENT) problem or have problems of burning eyes, dizziness, lung infection etc. But who cares for them? Atleast not the government. Pollution under control certificates of vehicles are not checked on regular intervals. It can contribute a lot in saving the environment from air pollution but no effort for that also is taken by traffic police. In Jammu we just need to have driving license and registration certificate with which traffic police lets you go. Driving by children under the age of 18, who obtain driving license by greasing the palms of authorities or Regional Transport Office (RTO) agents after submitting forged documents of their age proof, is adding to the problem of traffic. It is commonly witnessed many times when children are found driving but no police men can challan them, as they have valid license. Drives should be launched to educate masses to follow traffic rules strictly so that the problems of rising traffic can be regulated a bit .But sadly we don't have that trend in Jammu as we just celebrate traffic week once in a year in Jammu with many messages in that particular week. This allows people to forget all of it after some time. The awareness drives should be regular as people are very cautious only during traffic week. During it they ensure their documents are complete and they carry their helmet but rest of the year they are carefree. At times, if anyone who is heading for a hospital in case of an emergency gets stuck in traffic jam then the patient can only look upto God for survival. We know that there are problems but then there are solutions too, and the state has to find answers for it sooner otherwise things may be out of control and we have to taste bitter results later on. |
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