Faulty traffic signals spark confusion, chaos
Traffic signals are frequently on the blink or completely stop working at several important junctions in the city, at places as far apart as Rajendranagar dairy farm and Chanchalguda jail. Commuters were left fretting and fuming at multiple locations as traffic police personnel struggle to manually control the flow of vehicles.
The traffic signal at Chanchalguda jail near the government press had stopped working for a month. Md. Mujeeb Khan, a social activist from the Old City who travels on the road daily, said. “During peak hours the traffic is thrown out of gear because the traffic lights are not working. It also makes the life of pedestrians difficult.”
The signal was repaired recently.
Mirchowk traffic police inspector A. Ravi said the repairs took some time as a sensitive part had got damaged, and it required experts to come to the spot.
The traffic signal at Rajendranagar was not working for three months.
Mr K. Raju, who takes the road every day, said, “A lot of people take this route to reach their offices in the IT corridor. In the morning and evening hours this road sees bumper to bumper traffic. If there is any problem in between, traffic comes to halt.”
Asked about the problem, Rajendranagar traffic inspector K. Venkateshwar said, “While they were laying the water pipelines, the workers accidentally disturbed the cable of the traffic signal. This has resulted in signal deactivation.”
He said the police department had been been informing the authorities in Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL, which looks after the maintenance of traffic signals) since then but they have not been able to trace the problem, Mr Venkateshwar said. Following in the footsteps of the GHMC, the HMDA has proposed to form an enforcement wing, independent of other sections, to take effective punitive action against all kinds of violations, right from demolition of illegal structures to layouts.
The wing will have its head office away from the HMDA office, and will be headed by an IPS or IAS officer, with staff drawn from the various departments and wings.
To begin with, the enforcement wing will have 500 members. Plans are to increase the strength to 1,000 through recruitment. One hundred Home Guards will be sought from the police department, apart from a DSP, five inspectors and 10 sub-inspectors.
A senior official said it had become difficult for the HMDA to demolish unauthorised structures and layouts with the existing staff.
He said the HMDA had received a lukewarm response from other departments including collectorates and police during the recent demolition drive. “As a result, a HMDA official was forced to stop the demolition drive,” he said.
The official said that against this backdrop, the HMDA had decided to form an independent enforcement and vigilance wing in order to curtail illegal layouts and unauthorised constructions. The official said that the enforcement staff would act upon all the grievances with regard to violations, besides monitoring the area they are assigned to, on regular basis.
The team will have a DSP rank official, and officials drawn from town planning, engineering, fire, forest, irrigation, lakes, health, legal, IT, electricity, and related wings.
“The task of bringing down illegal structures will be assigned to the team which may be formed immediately after the elections,” the official added.