Kochi: Over 100 police personnel will be deployed and tough measures like towing away of vehicles illegally parked on construction sites will be taken to ease the acute traffic congestion caused by the ongoing Kochi metro construction activities.
This was decided at a high-level meet chaired by ADGP (South Zone) K Padmakumar on Friday on the direction of Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala.
“We’ve decided to deploy 75 police personnel and 25 home guards in addition to the 60 home guards now regulating traffic. Also we’ll tow away vehicles illegally parked – on single lane roads and at no-parking areas near the metro sites. For this we’ve directed deployment of the four towing/recovery vans attached to Mattanchery, Tripunithura, Kochi Town East and Kochi Town West police stations. Also those motorists who park two-wheelers along the footpaths will be penalized,” a statement said.
Traffic patrolling teams will travel from site to site to find out causes of traffic jams on major roads and at junctions and corrective measures will be taken based on their reports.
It was also decided to shift inwards the barricades placed for pillar constructions to ensure maximum width for vehicular flow. It has also decided to navigate small medium vehicles like cars along available parallel bye-routes roads.
Also the Ernakulam regional transport officer has been asked to cancel the permit of city buses that violate permit routes from Monday.
Cochin Port Trust authorities were asked to speed up the construction of parking yard spread on a 5.5-acre plot near the Vallarpadam International Container Transshipment Terminal to provide adequate parking space for container trucks.
The PWD, Corporation and the National Highway Authority of India were directed to do the road repairs at the earliest.
