Traffic cops desert Secunderabad Cantonment Board junctions at peak hours
HYDERABAD: Roads in Secunderabad Cantonment witness heavy traffic as people from North Eastern colonies, from ECIL, AS Rao Nagar etc., from Safilguda, Anandbagh, and East Anandbagh, to name a few, use these roads to travel to different places in Secunderabad, Hyderabad and Cyberabad on a daily basis. However, unlike rest of the city, there are no traffic personnel posted to man some of the busy junctions where traffic volume is very high during peak hours. AOC Circle, Harmony Chowk, Bison Dwar, Ammuguda Junction, Telangana/ Andhra Sub Area Circle etc., are some of the places where traffic has increased considerably over the last few years.
Take the case of AOC Circle, where vehicular movement is haphazard and, vehicles coming from Picket, Safilguda, East Maredpally and Gough Road take a quick turn at the circle leaving motorists coming from opposite directions to slow down or apply quick brakes to avoid bumping into each other. Similar such problems are seen in other places too. In contrast, whenever the President visits Rashtrapati Nilayam in Bollarum as part of his winter sojourn, city traffic police are seen in every nook and corner on Cantonment stretches for those few days.
But once the First Citizen departs, spotting traffic personnel in Cantonment junctions is a rarity. According to Allahabad High Court order given on November 2015, public order and policing is a state subject matter. A Cantonment area is also subject to such laws, with some exceptions vis-a-vis members and establishment of exclusive armed forces.
In an interim order given by the Hyderabad High Court in April 2014, it was said that the Hyderabad police had asserted that as per the provisions of the Hyderabad City Police Act, applicable to the entire metropolitan area of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, the Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad city is vested with power by Section 21(1) (b) of Hyderabad Police Act to regulate traffic of all kinds in public streets or public places including AOC, which is part of the metropolitan area.
Advocate Turja N. Ganguly, a resident of Sainikpuri said that policing was a state subject in the country unless the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act was enacted, such as in Jammu and Kashmir and a few states in the North East where military has the power over policing. Meanwhile, when asked about citizens’ requests, Additional Commissioner of Police Anil Kumar said that he would focus on traffic regulation in Cantonment and also get details of busy junctions and vehicular movement flow and take decisions accordingly.
