Automated Traffic Signals Lying Defunct In Guwahati City

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Guwahati is on the brink of attaining the title of a smart city. The government is laying enough emphasis on trying to pull all the ropes into making the city an international hub for trade and commerce. With all the initiatives guided into moulding the city among the most developed in the state, the authorities have completely overlooked the traffic quandary which acts as a stain in the carefully guided blueprint of a supposed smart city.

Although the transport department of Kamrup (M) designed new guidelines recently to ease traffic congestion and to aid in combating accidents, these fail to be of any use when such a simple thing as the automated traffic lights remain broken in major traffic points.

The ABC traffic point is among the busiest areas of the Guwahati Shillong Road, making it that much more susceptible to vehicle accidents. However, the signal in this traffic point has been broken since the past year and not a buzz of ever trying to fix it has been heard. As the day wears on, the traffic in this area increases and the traffic signal at this point served to be the most helpful in maintaining steady traffic. After the signal broke down, the control of traffic became a heavy burden for any constable that manned the junction.

Speaking to The Sentinel, one constable said, “It is really a hard task managing such heavy flow of traffic throughout the day but it gets done as long as the sun is up but the evenings are a different story altogether. The drivers sometimes rush through as they fail to see me operating from afar and since the traffic lights are broken, this happens all too often, resulting in terrible accidents. It is a hard task signalling traffic when the vehicle riders are not even able to see us.”

Upon enquiry about the authority responsible for repairing the signal, the police department informed they are not the department who looks into these matters. “The responsibility falls under GMC (Guwahati Municipal Corporation) to arrange for an outsourcing vendor, to fix the signal.”

Now with one department shrugging off the responsibility and piling it on to another and so on, the big question here is who is actually responsible for such maintenances? If no one is willing to take on the job, will the signals remain broken indefinitely? How does Guwahati become a smart city when even elementary changes become a Herculean task that no department is willing to undertake? Unless these issues are mended, the city remains a far cry from attaining the status it strives to achieve.

Also Read: GUWAHATI CITY