Holiday travellers jam traffic

Holiday travellers jam traffic

Anil Kumar Sastry

Authorities fail to address the recurring traffic logjams on festival eves

— Photo: Sampath Kumar G.P.

FESTIVAL BONANZA FOR KSRTC: A section of the crowd at KSRTC Central Bus Station at Subhashnagar in Bangalore on Wedensday.

BANGALORE: The stretch of Kempe Gowda Road between Mysore Bank Circle and the Kempe Gowda Bus Station resembled a sea of humanity on Wednesday night.

It was not because people went on for last minute festival shopping, but because of hordes of people intending to go out of Bangalore to celebrate Deepavali.

As every mode of transport — BMTC buses, autorickshaws and private vehicles — were caught in a traffic logjam, people were forced to alight the vehicles and walk all the way to the bus station and the City Railway Station.

Narasimha Nayak, a resident of Jayanagar, alighted a BMTC bus along with his two children, wife and luggage. “All the enthusiasm to celebrate Deepavali with my parents in Mangalore vanished at the beginning itself,” he said.

Bumper-to-bumper traffic was witnessed on all roads leading to Majestic. For people coming from South Bangalore, it took two hours to reach the destination as the stretch between Minerva Circle, Majestic, J.C. Road, N.R. Road and Kempe Gowda Road were packed.

Similar was the scene on Richmond Road, Raja Rammohun Roy Road and Platform Road.
Fire fighting?

Caught in the traffic bottleneck, many were seen blaming the traffic police for not planning in advance. Rajesh Nambiar, a resident of Ulsoor, said for the last few years, traffic jams on festival eve have become common and the police should have made proper arrangements.

R. Srikumar, Director-General of Police and Chairman of Karnataka State Police Housing Corporation, said: “The police are just engaged in fire fighting and lack proper planning.”

Chief Secretary P.B. Mahishi, who is the Chairman of Bangalore Land Transport Authority, told The Hindu that at present, the traffic police should handle the chaos. Until several plans – short and long-term – were in place to decongest the city roads, traffic police had to handle the situation meticulously, he said. Mr. Mahishi even instructed the police to put additional manpower to ease the situation.

Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic and Security) blamed KSRTC for the chaos. The situation worsened because KSRTC had inducted additional services, he said. At the same breath, he maintained that additional services were essential to cater to the swelling number of passengers.

Mr. Ramamurthy said the department had asked KSRTC to operate additional services from different parts of the city without touching the Majestic area.

On their part, KSRTC officials maintained that it was the corporation’s duty to take passengers to their destination. “We have pressed into service around 700 additional services and not a single passenger will remain stranded in the bus station,” said K.A. Rajkumar, General Manager (Traffic).

While Mysore-bound buses are operated from Mysore Road Terminal, Tamil Nadu-bound buses are operated from BMTC’s Shanthinagar terminal to ease the congestion.
Additional train coaches

The South Western Railway (SWR) will attach additional coaches depending upon the rush to trains being currently operated to Bagalkot, Kochuvelli, Kachiguda, Mayiladuthurai, Cannanore, Kholapur, Tuticorin, Kanniya Kumari, Hospet, New Delhi, Hubli and Muzaffarpur.

Divisional Railway Manager Mahesh Mangal admitted that the festival rush was phenomenal and the South-Western Railway was making every effort to provide accommodation within the available resources.

While private operators are having a field day by jacking up fares by almost 100 per cent, KSRTC has increased fares by 20 to 30 per cent on select destinations. It has increased fares in additional services to five destinations in Tamil Nadu, Dharmasthala and Hyderabad as it does not get return passengers immediately the next day.