Odd-evil of traffic management takes Srinagar hostage
Majid Hyderi
It cannot be more ridiculous than this. Having miserably failed to manage traffic in the summer capital in the wake of closure of the arterial Jahangir Chowk-Ram Bagh(JCRB) road, the government is resorting to hit-and-trial of everything, including the upcoming plan to make schoolchildren sleepless in the name of traffic management.
School kids are not any soldiers and Srinagar is no battlefield. But if the proposal to open schools at 7:00 AM gets the nod, the children will need to be ready before sunrise, much like it happens during wars when offensive is strategically launched before the first beam of sunlight strikes the earth.
When the world was sleeping, schoolchildren were awake; as if traffic management is like hitting housefly, the iconic makhi, which Arjun Singh, I mean Amitabh Bachan attempted to kill in movie Namak Halal that the traffic authorities want to enforce everything albeit in the absence of commonsense.
Consider this one: the plan to introduce the odd-even traffic rules. The authorities fail to understand that New Delhi implemented this plan to put pollution levels under control, and not traffic chaos, which has erupted here out of sheer mismanagement at the hands of civil administration and traffic police, alike.
New Delhi or other metropolitan cities can afford the odd-even plan for they are adequately blessed with alternative mediums of mobility through the Rapid Transport System, which includes metro service, cabs- on-call, impressive fleet of buses, apart from expressways. Srinagar on the contrary, craves for all such facilities. So odd-even here sounds like odd-evil.
As per the latest statistical information of Motor Vehicles Department, Srinagar, which has population of over 14 lakh souls (excluding five odd lakh floating population), has 1,67,963 vehicles registered. Of this, the number of mini buses is merely 3,380. The number of auto-rickshaws, which are yet to install meters and charge arbitrary, is around 10,000.
Cutting the statistical details short, the government wants some 15 lakh people to be mainly dependant on mere 3,380 minibuses, mostly Tata 407, where seating arrangement is grossly uncomfortable. But then if New Delhi is an inspiration, the Kejriwal-government had exempted private vehicles ferrying schoolchildren from the odd-even rule.
If Srinagar implements the same, how will traffic police know, which cars are on their way back from a school run? And, what about parents heading to collect their wards from school? And if parents have to pick-and-drop their kids at odd times, when will they reach their own offices where biometrics marks their attendance?
Add to this confusion, the extra travel time and expenses. In the wake of diversion, the 6-KM drive from Hyderpora to Lal Chowk has been dragged into 12-KM snail-paced drive via congested Bemina-Tatto Ground route.
Simply put, the authorities are hiding their typical failure through the mathematics of odd-even, which may be converted into prime, or other number schemes.
Given the endless absurdity in the name of traffic management over the days, we may eventually come across traffic cops busy with calculators, trying to discover square-root of vehicle number permissible on a particular day. Mathematically speaking, the authorities have enforced the plan where efficiency gets naturally multiplied by zero.
But then VIPs are unaware of the traffic chaos. The diversion plan has been devised so wickedly that rules apply to commoners alone. All VIPs and other influential are exempted from diversion for they continue to drive down the otherwise closed JCRB road.
Logically, the traffic plan, as prepared in consultation with Divisional Commissioner Kashmir and Inspector General of Police Traffic, has proved a recipe of urban disaster. Within three days of its implementation, Mehjoor Nagar bridge, a key traffic diversion link to south was formally closed for vehicular movement only to add to chaos.
The other dedicated connectivity to south city highway via Mominabad-Batamallo corridor is partially dead. One of the two lanes is undergoing massive drainage construction. Moreover, the much-needed relocation of Batamaloo bus stand to Parim Pora remains awaited as the destination site has been officially converted into a slum.
Unending pavement-vending, other encroachments, bad roads, shortage of workforce in the Traffic Police with mere 350 odd cops, only add to the public woes. Though some 5000 cops sit idle at the District Police Lines, none of them is being deployed for effective traffic regulation in the capital, where life has almost come to grinding halt.
While commercial activities in the Central Business District centered around Lal Chowk, are worst-hit, there’s equally a threat to life to patients being rushed to hospitals.
Amid chaos from all sides, the maternity LD Hospital on JCRB route is virtually inaccessible, if reaching in-time for delivery makes sense. Travel between SMHS and Bones and Joints Hospital is equally troublesome as there are no dedicated roads, which would be void of jams for ambulances.
Although SSP Traffic Srinagar has just introduced a helpline for ambulances, its success is subject to use of helicopter services for patients. On the other hand, silence of prominent forums like High Court Bar Association, KCCI, KEA, KCSDS and CRDP only adds to public helplessness.
The traffic police is trying to give a rosy picture through drive down the fashionable MA Road, a strategic connectivity between Civil Secretariat and Gupkar, where most of the ministers and senior officials reside.
But the fact is that just around this VIP route to Civil Secretariat, diversions have giving rise to cascading-crises, which will only fester after opening of durbar move offices.
It’s high time for the Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti, who is officially making her debut in the summer capital, to personally look into the matter before the issue of mismanaged traffic snowballs into major human rights abuse, feared to start with children getting ready for school at midnight!
Author is a free-lance journalist and analyst. He can be mailed at majid.hyderi@gmail.com
