Call it ignorance or otherwise, the fact is that both the shoppers and the shopkeepers are squarely responsible for the traffic snarls happening particularly in and around the principal market areas of the city. They are flouting the traffic norms with impunity with the law-enforcers making it a point to look the other way. Rampant encroachment of the road space by the shopkeepers in the key city market areas is a grim problem. Add to it, the shoppers parking their vehicles, throwing a damn for the parking norms and the picture of the traffic woe is complete. The role of the traffic police is queer. They swoop on the violators once in a while, slap them with penalties, and then, slump back to sweet slumber, say the people who face the ordeal on the road almost daily. They say the people are more to blame. “We must stop breaking the rules instead of sweeping the blame to the courtyard of others,” runs the common refrain.
It seems that the police have failed to instill fear of the law in the law breakers’ minds. They cough up the penalty when they are forced to and then they revert back to the groove of repeating the same. The law seems to have failed to prove deterrent as far as blatant flouting of traffic norms is concerned.
The market which starts from the Tehsil area till the Jama Masjid stands witness to traffic snarl daily. The shopkeepers encroaching the space they are supposed to keep away from are spawning it.
“Whenever we come to the market we make it a point to park our vehicles at the areas meant for parking. But those who do not are not being made to sufficiently pay for it. The spirit of the police action should not wane after a couple of operations,” said Santosh Upadhyay one of the shoppers. He further said that most of the shopkeepers extending their shops are compounding the problems.
Manoj Bhandari, a boy engaged in parking vehicles at Tehsil Market, said the problem that they face daily in the market areas is the people bringing their cars to the market that blocks the passage area of the market. “Encroachment is another problem that is aggravating things. The road is quite wide for the traffic to move smoothly on both sides. However, the space being encroached upon by the shopkeepers and the vegetable vendors are making it a single way traffic,” he added.
Nishi, a student, said that the traffic police are not to blame for the traffic mess. “We are squarely responsible for it,” she added.
A traffic police posted there said while insisting on anonymity that despite the shopkeepers being asked to remove the encroachments, they were in no mood to listen to them. “We slap them with penalties from time to time. But they hardly care. What more can we doIJ” he said despairingly.