The Dehradun district administration and Doon police have continued to play a passive role in civic administration which has made traffic jams caused by processions and rallies a routine feature of life in the State capital.
On Sunday, a religious procession taken out by a local temple society caused traffic congestion for quite some time of various city roads. On Monday, the protest rally of MNREGA employees caused traffic congestion on city roads. The role of the police and
district administration has now remained limited to ‘monitoring’ the situation instead of taking preventive and corrective steps.
Since assuming the post of the Dehradun senior superintendent of police, Kewal Khurana introduced various measures including imposing the one-way traffic system on stretches of different roads and raising the frequency of checking drives by the police.
Some time ago following rising public opinion against such disorder there was talk of the district administration and police considering the option of fixing a time slot and route for religious/cultural processions and rallies in town to prevent the major inconvenience caused to the public by such events.
However, the authorities have taken no such steps in public interest so far.With cultural processions and protest rallies become a routine feature in Dehradun, the resulting traffic jams and public inconvenience have also become part of life in the State capital.
The citizens complain that the authorities are focusing their efforts only on preventing public servants from facing the brunt of such events while the public continues to suffer. The people complain that they have often raised this issue but the authorities prefer to honour the political connections of those organising the events and rallies in stead of acting tough.
The government regularly touts Dehradun as a hub of education and Uttarakhand as a tourism hub but has remained apathetic to such blatant civic anomalies in the State capital.
It now remains to be seen whether the Dehradun SSP or district magistrate take cognisance of this issue and take necessary action to rid the city of this proclivity for civic anomalies.