Slowly, but surely, the city’s traffic department is trying to ease traffic related problems in the eastern parts of the city, where congestion and snarls have become a daily affair. After freeing up roads recently from encroachment near Astodia gate, Jamalpur flower market, Ellisbridge and Kalupur station, traffic cops have now shifted their focus on perennially crowded Gandhi road and Relief road.
Earlier, to ease the traffic problems in the eastern part of the city, traffic department comprehensively surveyed all major problem areas and circles. Afterwards, they started implementing some tough steps to ease the traffic problems. Working on the plan laid down after the survey, traffic police have held several rounds of meetings with all stakeholders of Gandhi road, including regular commuters, shopkeepers, residents and AMTS drivers.
“We have finally realised there is an urgent need to solve the traffic problem on the road. We have therefore taken some tough decisions,” said S M Khatri, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Traffic. According to him, the road is already narrow, and it is further choked by illegal parking on both sides. “The congestion was such that you can’t even see Panchkuva from Gandhi road,” exclaimed Khatri, after witnessing the problems of commuters, who were wasting their precious time and fuel due to frequent traffic jams.
As a first step, traffic cops have asked all shopkeepers to refrain from encroaching the road with their commercial and personal vehicles. Since Gandhi road has hundreds of shops, commercial vehicles are a regular sight. “To load and unload their stock, they just park their tempo on the road. They even put their inventory on the footpath or even on the road. We have stopped that and asked them to follow the rules,” said Khatri.
One such rule, which was implemented recently, is alternate day parking from Gandhi road till Khadia. “The notification was already issued a few years back, but no one was following it. Now we have made it compulsory. For greater relief, we have even asked shopkeepers to park the tempos which bring goods to their shops at a minimum distance of 100 meters from each other, and stressed that they should not remain on the road for long but leave as quickly as possible after delivery,” said Khatri, who drew flak from shopkeepers, but, has largely been hailed by the public.
“Earlier, to cross 250 meters of stretch from Gandhi road to Panchkuva, I used to take more than half hour due to the congestion. But, now I am crossing it with so much ease within 5 to 6 minutes,” said Rakesh Vaghela, a driver.
