Failing to free encroached roads, the district police have enforced one-way at places like Dharmpur and Gandhi Road to improve traffic system in Dehradun, a measure which is further compounding the woes of the commuters instead of easing things a bit for them.
Due to lack of coordination among the officers of district administration, police, municipal corporation and other departments concerned, traders keep continuing with their roadsides encroachment, making traffic to crawl.
An observer said that due to the poor traffic system, the commuters are being forced to take detours which are making them shell out more on fuel aside from wasting their precious time.
The scene at Dharmapur is pathetic as Sabji and fruit vendors have parts of the roads encroached with police seemingly fawning on them. Instead, police have put up barricades here and there, slowing down traffic. The suffering commuters say that the ill-thought-out traffic plans instead of taking on the origin of the problem are making things to go from bad to worse. “True, anti-encroachment drives are launched now and then. However, things go back to the square one a day or two after as encroachers return. Police get back to their laid-back attitude, allowing things to revert to the pre-drive conditions. Other departments involved in the drive do the same as the coordination among them is in a pathetic state,” said an aggrieved commuter.
After assuming charge, the district magistrate S A Murugesan had said that he would try to ensure coordination among various departments- transport, municipal corporation, police and district administration- to pave way for smooth traffic system in the capital. However, things are dragging on with the desired coordination remaining elusive and the people continuing to suffer their daily ordeal on the roads.
The tourists who arrive in Dehradun on way to the famed tourism destinations like Mussoorie are facing the same. Ramesh from Ghaziabad who spent some time in Dehradun on way to Mussoorie lamented the sorry state of things on the roads. “I got stuck for hours in the traffic bottleneck. Things must look up or the state would lose revenue on the account of the footfalls of the tourists. Things here are really depressing,” he rued.