I received a mail from Satish Sapra who talks about issue of encroachment of public places. He says, “In the issue of TODAY dated 24 November 2004, you have rightly pointed out one of the main causes of traffic jams and unwieldy parking of vehicles in the residential areas of Delhi, is encroachment of public places, be it road or pavement. “In the residential colonies, the illegal encroachment by residents has left very little space for parking. If it is not encroachment, per se, keeping earthen pots blocks it, which further narrows the available road space for public use.“Because of lack of space available for parking, there have been cases of hot exchanges between the neighbours and some times police had to intervene with no permanent solution. The scenes of abuses and fights are very common these days. In one of the cases, the bullets were used. If this continues, time is not far when there will be often cases of murders due to lack of parking space. “Therefore, it is most urgent for the authorities to demolish the encroachments on the main roads as well as in the colonies, in order to ease the situation. RWAs should also play a proactive role to persuade the residents to demolish the encroachments and leave the space for public usage. Your efforts to shake the authorities and the RWAs for this visible solution will be very much appreciated.”Delhi’s biggest problem is of encroachments and I think it is high time that traffic police, DDA and MCD should start looking at it seriously. With a joint effort they can easily get rid of these encroachments from Delhi roads.Traffic AdvisoryBJP is organising a rally and march from Ram Lila Ground to Parliament House today. Traffic will certainly get disrupted due to the march. The Delhi Traffic Police has made elaborate traffic arrangements to ensure that general traffic is not disrupted.In view of the march, the road network around Delhi Gate Crossing i.e., Jawahar Lal Nehru Marg, Subhash Marg, Bahadurshah Zafar Marg and Asaf Ali Road will be closed for all types of traffic during noon hours. No Heavy Goods Vehicle and Light Goods Vehicle shall be allowed on Ring Road between wazirabad Bridge and Nizamuddin Bridge. No slow moving traffic will be allowed to enter Ring Road from East Delhi.Bus services too will get affected. No bus service shall be allowed to ply around Ram Lila Maidan. All buses coming from Mathura Road, Shahjahan oad shall be diverted to take Bhairon Road and join Ring Road to reach their destination.Buses coming from West Delhi via Paharganj Bridge shall be curtailed at Paharganj to resume their return journey.Buses coming from East Delhi and using Delhi Gate crossing to go to Red Fort, Railway Station shall not be allowed to turn left from Rajghat crossing. They will go straight and use New Daryaganj Road.Similarly buses coming from Red Fort, Old Delhi Railway Station via Subhash Marg shall be diverted on New Deryaganj Road to continue their journey on Ring Road. Buses coming from Connaught Place side shall be diverted from Bhav Bhuti Marg to resume their return journey.In view of road closure, the congestion is expected on some roads. Motorists are requested to avoid these roads and use alternative roads to reach their destinations during noon hours.

Rakesh Jaggi has sent another mail where he talks vehicles with tinted glasses. He says, “I would like to emphasise that the private vehicles with tinted glasses must be punished severely. It is very obvious that most of the people using these vehicles take advantage of the non-strictness of the police force for committing different type of criminal acts. I feel very sad and disappointed with the authorities to see these cars plying on the road without any hesitation and committing their wrongdoings. “Let us take this subject very seriously and with loud and clear words at all levels. The authorities must catch the vehicle and note the complete details with immediate cleaning of the dark foils or confiscation of vehicle. I have seen the occupants of these tinted or blackened vehicles waste no time in making mockery of the rules and regulations. Most of the people having these vehicles have premeditated notions and execute the same. “The authorities must not excuse any particular individual to have these black glasses and it should be for one and all. I am sure you will agree with me for immediate and urgent action for this type of problem.” I agree fully with you regarding this matter. Traffic Police should launch a special drive to check these vehicles.Meanwhile, everything has gone fine for the traffic police officials till now. The trade fair was a success, they also have tackled marriage problem, but have you ever thought about the plight of lower constabulary of traffic police. On Sunday night I met few constables at Andheria Mod. I was very touched by the way they were working. One told me that for the past three days they were coming on duty at 5 am and were working till 12.30 at night. And Sunday being the D-day for them, they were not sure when they were going home. One constable had stiches on his eye and he told me that he was supposed to have got them cut on Saturday. But he didn’t get the time to go to the doctor. Another jokingly mentioned that they have to attend the call of nature during duty hours only as their reporting time is very early in the morning. Well, now you can imagine their plight and the circumstances under which they are serving you. So next time you meet them on road, say thank you!

I received another mail from Rakesh Jaggi who had earlier lamented that media has not taken a note of the role played by traffic police during the trade fair. After reading our last Monday’s cover story he said, “I feel it is encouraging for all of us to note the good work of the authorities in regard to the traffic movements and compliment the same. It is very important for all of us to come forward and applause the good work of police as most of the time we are criticising them for their acts without analysing the situation. I am not trying to be biased towards the police force but feel that we should not lose any time to praise and reward their good work for us.“If we all collectively decide to implement the traffic movement formula of trade fair on most of the roads of the city, then very soon we would have the fruitful results. However, it may look very theoretical but one must not forget the positive and effective results in and around the Trade fair. “I would like to suggest that the local authorities must make available some of their Employees for few hours in a week from all ranks in rotation to assist the Traffic police as this type of operation would require a good amount of man power. Also, there should be a system to reward these traffic volunteers for their work and assistance. This type of reward would not only encourage the volunteers but would be good motivation to general public. We all try to take advantage of our system by parking our vehicles on the main roads or controlling the good part of the roads for our personal or commercial use giving a blind eye to the sufferings of thousands of our fellow road users. If the authorities take this matter seriously and implement this in phases then very soon our Delhi would be surely a role model of the Traffic for the whole world.”Well, a welcome advice but only good if it is implemented. I just hope this rule is at least applied on the roads where Metro construction is taking place.

Debashish Panda called me from Noida to talk about traffic problem in Noida. He says, “I stay in Sector 62 in Noida everyday I go to my office situated at Sector 16 A. It is a stretch of 12 kilomteres. In between this stretch there are 5-6 traffic signals but none of them are synchronised. Since it is a major arterial road, the traffic police in Noida should synchronise it so that we get a green channel every time we take it. Presently we have to stop at each red light which consumes so much of our precious time.”Well, frankly speaking Debashish, I don’t know much about how Noida traffic functions. But I know one thing that Delhi Traffic Police is running courses for UP Police who are posted in their traffic department. Since Noida is an important part of National Capital Region of Delhi, so I think the district authorities should be keener to give their residents the same facilities that Delhiites get, be it traffic police or local policing.Things like synchronising the traffic signals can be done easily but someone in the authority has to take an initiative. In terms of roads, Noida is better off than Ghaziabad, where the condition is just pathetic. Even lighting on the streets is a big problem in Ghaziabad, which is a major cause of worry for commuters as it is prone to accidents. Perhaps the Uttar Pradesh government should show some concern in developing Ghaziabad also. Invariably people coming from Meerut, Musoorie, etc. get caught in traffic jams at the Delhi-Ghaziabad border. The district authority should show some respect to commuters by providing better traffic management in border areas. Haryana in those terms is good. Perhaps if travelling on GT Karnal Road, one feels relieved once we enter Haryana as the road conditions are perfect for driving. On the contrary if you enter Delhi from Haryana, miseries of commuters start as the broadening of GT Karnal Road is presently under construction on Delhi side and it will take some time before Delhiites could heave a sigh of relief.

Kailash Nath Jasoriya called me about a year back regarding a traffic problem in his locality. Once again he has called me to tell that situation hasn’t improved. He says, “I stay on Ramjas Road and there is a tikki shop by the name of Sindhi Tikki house. He has encroached on the pedestrian’s path and virtually hijacked the entire place around his shop. Now in the evenings, lot of people come there to have tikkis in their cars due to which there is a huge traffic jam. The problem is that people park their cars on both sides of the road and choke it. Traffic constables and local police look the other way round. Since we stay there, we have to face such a big problem. To cover a distance of just 200 metres, it takes sometimes 20 minutes. We are living in a hell and traffic police should do something about it.”The problem of encroachments is affecting commuters and residents in a huge way in Karol Bagh, Rajinder Nagar and Patel Nagar. Forget about encroachments in old Rajinder Nagar roundabout there are seven odd cars, which are not roadworthy only. Two contessas, one Montana, a burnt Maruti car, ambassadors and fiat are among them which I haven’t seen them even moving in the past one year. Though the beat constables just sit on the roundabout, they haven’t thought of depositing these cars in MCD or even tried to find out their owners. They consume precious parking space in the area.I spoke to the SHO of the area about the problem and he told me “if we remove them, then the owners just appear from somewhere.” The cops should understand the problem of the area, as there is hardly any parking space. People are fighting for it and these useless cars are dumped on the roundabout. To top it all just two weeks back someone dumped a brown contessa car, which is in tatters. And since then it hasn’t been moved from there. I think in all such localities where such cars are dumped, cops should conduct a survey and deposit unused cars with the MCD.