Damaged dividers fail to check traffic chaos in Jammu

Damaged dividers fail to check traffic chaos in Jammu
Archit Watts
Tribune News Service

Jammu, September 8
All efforts made by the police to streamline the traffic seem to have failed as the recently installed dividers on city roads have been damaged. A lot of money was spent on the project, which was the brainchild of IGP, Traffic, Hemant Kumar Lohia, who had claimed a number of times that the traffic would be streamlined, once the dividers were installed.

However,in less than a year,almost all the dividers have been damaged and do not serve any purpose.

The dividers have been either removed or dumped on the roadside in most parts of the city.

At some places, these have been damaged by heavy vehicles, posing a threat to commuters.

Shopkeepers near the Bikram Chowk told The Tribune that the dividers, which were installed to make separate lanes for two-wheelers, were now causing injuries to commuters.

“Almost everyday, two or three motorcyclists get injured. Neither the traffic police nor the JMC maintain the broken dividers. Sometimes, the people themselves remove the damaged dividers,” said Ashish Kumar, a shopkeeper at the Bikram Chowk.

The situation is almost similar on the Apsara Road and the Gole Market, where the dividers were installed almost a year ago.

Earlier, the department had installed plastic boulders, which were said to be expensive.

Even the IGP,Traffic, had said as compared to the dividers,the plastic boulders were expensive.

Meanwhile, traffic jams and long queues of vehicles are still the order of the day here. The department had identified some accident-prone zones and painted the portions of roads with zebra lines, which have proved ineffective.

A number of CCTV cameras were also installed across the city to keep a check on increasing traffic violations. A senior traffic police official also admitted the fact that the dividers had failed to serve any purpose.

However, the IGP could not be contacted even after repeated attempts.