Visakhapatnam: Over one-and-half years after the Vizag police commissionerate floated a proposal to set up six new traffic police stations in Vizag city for better traffic management, the plan is yet to take off. Traffic on the busy roads of Vizag cannot be expected to be managed better as the government has been delaying to sanction the new traffic police stations.
There are only seven traffic police stations in Vizag city whereas vehicles on city roads have been increasing at a rapid pace. Every year, about 60,000 vehicles of different categories are adding on to the existing numbers. With about 400 policemen in the city traffic wing, Vizag traffic cops are struggling to ensure smoother flow of traffic spread over 1,200 km, including 73 km of NH-16 stretch and covering over 20 lakh population.
The existing manpower in traffic wing is able to regulate traffic at over 100 major junctions in the city. Vizag city requires at le-ast 200 more personnel in traffic wing and new traffic police stations, besides the latest equipment to monitor the traffic. Then police commissioner Amit Garg had sent a recommendation to the government for creation of six more exclusive traffic police stations in the city.
However, the state government is yet to approve the proposal and recommendation sent by the city police, said a senior police officer with city traffic police wing. Admitting that controlling traffic and reducing road accidents will be a major challenge for the police force and will be the main problem for Vizag city in the coming years, ADCP (Traffic) K.M. Patrudu said traffic snarls have become a common thing in most of the major junctions such as NAD Kotha Road, Madillapalem, Asilmetta and Satyam Junction and few others areas in the city during the peak hours. “We are ill-equipped in terms of manpower and technology and there is ur-gent need to set up exclusive traffic police stations in Vizag city to mitigate traffic snarls,” he added.
