Hyderabad: Traffic management at the Pushkar ghats and highways is proving to be a problem for the Nalgonda and Mahabubnagar police as key national highways touch the main ghats and pilgrimage centres.
After the bitter experience on the first day of the last year’s Godavari Pushkarams, with huge traffic jams at the main ghats including Basara Gnana Saraswathi Temple in Adilabad, Kaleswaram and Dharmapuri in Karimnagar, Eturunagaram in Warangal and Bhadrachalam in Khammam district, ministers T. Harish Rao, E. Rajendra and T. Nageswara Rao themselves had controlled traffic at Kales-waram and Bhadrachalam.
As the Godavari Pushkaram was the first event in the newly formed Telangana state, the government had taken all precautionary measures. Despite that, the first three days saw mayhem as far as traffic was concerned. Nalgonda and Mahabubn-agar officials have prepared a comprehensive traffic management system for the Krish-na Pushkarams.
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Mahabubnagar SP Rema Raj-eshwari said “Traffic arrangements have been made for about 1,053.5 km in the district for the Pushkarams. Two national highways — NH44 and NH 765 — are crossing through the major Pushkar ghats. We have identified diversion points at 12 major and 16 minor places in order to avoid traffic jams, apart from arranging holding points and parking places besides NH44, NH167 and NH765,” she told this newspaper.
About public transport, she said, “We have made arrangements for buses, taxis, and shuttle autos from the parking places to the Pushkar ghats.” Nalgonda SP N. Prakash Reddy said nine traffic tracking points will be set up and the output from these points will assist in estimating traffic for particular ghats.”
