Mysore Grahakara Parishat's January monthly meeting held on 12-1-14 focussed on traffic woes of Mysore. Dr. M.A.Saleem, Commissioner of Police, Ms.Asha Bharath, Assistant Director of Town Planning, MCC, Sri. Ramakrishna Iyengar, ARTO and Sri. Maqsood Ahmed, Divisional Traffic Officer, KSRTC participated.
Mr.Maqsood Ahmed explained that inappropriate and faulty location of bus shelters by the MCC results in huge problems for the KSRTC. Public mistakenly believes that these bus shelters are put up by the KSRTC. Secondly the location of Autorickshaw stands very close to these bus shelters, of location of footpath vendors in or around them cause immense problems both for the drivers and the travelling public.
Ms.Asha Bharat explained that MCC is simply an executing agency as for as bus shelters are concerned which are selected by the peoples’ representatives like Corporators and the MLAs and some-times on public demand. On faulty meters of the Autorickshaws Sri.Ramakrishna explained that this aspect is not within the domain of RTO but is the responsibility of Weights and Measures Department. He further explained that the operating of Kerala registered Autorickshaws in the city is not illegal but are permitted as per the provisions of the MV Act.
Dr.Saleem lucidly explained that the difference between Traffic Regulation, which is the domain of Police Dept, and Traffic Management, which is the product of policies and rules of agencies such as MCC, RTO and others. This fine demarcation is not made known to the public. He made it clear that Police has very restricted role of Traffic Regulation. Enforcement of helmet rules is one of these regulations. He explained that police department in Mysore is implementing extensive use of the modern technology in executing its duties.
Closed Circuit cameras linked to control room is now helping in checking and penalising traffic violations. He made a mention of Traffic Task Force in Bengaluru which has radically reduced the death due to traffic accidents apart from disciplining the drivers. Even though there is no such Traffic Task Force in Mysore the concerned government departments such as RTO, MCC and KSRTC and the Police are having informal coordination meetings to thrash out there inter-departmental issues. He assured the participants that very soon the Police Department will enforce the rules which prohibit use of Cell Phones while driving and the use of seat belts. However, he mentioned that he found a very casual attitude of the public at large when it comes to traffic rules. He surmised this being more an outcome of lack of civic discipline than an regulation or enforcement lacunae.
Public placed before the representatives their individual and societal traffic problems and sought their solution. Lack of interdepartmental coordination was brought to the forefront during the discussion. Therefore, it was the opinion of the participants that formation of Traffic Task Force in Mysore, on the lines of Bengaluru, would help better coordination among the concerned departments of the government in tackling the traffic problems of the city.
R Chandra Prakash, MGP