Traffic lights and traffic snarls in Shillong
Shillong being the second most congested city after Mumbai in terms of the number of vehicles for every thousand people, it has so far failed to have a traffic control system on its clogged roads.
THE RS 1.5 crore hi-tech traffic lights in Shillong city go out of order frequently. The first of its kind in the Northeast, the project on urban traffic control system was aimed at easing the city’s terrible traffic congestion.
Shillong being the second most congested city after Mumbai in terms of the number of vehicles for every thousand people, it has so far failed to have a traffic control system on its clogged roads. An annoyed senior police officer manning the traffic branch observed the implementation of the project has led to further jams and confusion as it is not synchronized with the traffic flow because it is placed on a time mode through an automated regulator. According to him, modifications should be made available for some junctions and there should be manual operation in those junctions in keeping with traffic flow. The entire payment for the work, its implementation and servicing was paid to Webel Mediatronics Ltd, a company owned by the West Bengal government and the expenditure was borne by the Centre. The state government has informed the company about the latest status of the lights but the company is yet to take any step to rectify the problematic traffic lights. Crawling traffic in Shillong is a common sight and has been a major headache for the administration. The city is bursting at the seams with a population of over six lakh and is finding it difficult to ensure smooth traffic flow during rush hours, when all the main thoroughfares leading to offices and schools are chock-a-block with cars. The government’s latest initiatives includes signing of an MoU wherein the UMTC would study and find out solutions to de-congest the city and through its study it will be able to identify, conceptualize structure and develop resources to implement the transport projects like road linkages, flyovers and others. There are 17 main traffic junctions starting from Mawlai to Nongthymmai in the city. The signal system was funded by the Union Urban Affairs Ministry and designed by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, (CDAC) a wing of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.
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