Motorists in the national Capital may end up facing never-ending traffic woes if the Delhi Government has its ways. In what reflects as the sheer lack of foresightedness and planning, the Delhi Government has identified 500 arterial roads across the city with reserved lanes for movement of emergency vehicles, similar to the ones during the Commonwealth Games. While the Government officials said the move aims at meeting disaster-related emergency; the Delhi Traffic Police has raised objection to the plan saying this will lead to innumerable traffic woes. Their contention is that a dedicated lane cannot be provided for fire tenders and other emergency vehicles but there can be provisions on particular roads in case of a fire emergency by diverting traffic temporarily.
Since Delhi has a huge vehicular population of over 80 lakh coupled with around 10 lakh floating vehicles, marking a separate passage for fire engine is impractical. This proposal was pending since long but in a recent meeting with the Chief Secretary, the traffic police officials agreed in principle to provide dedicated lanes on need basis.
According to the proposal moved by the city Government, deliberate straying into emergency lanes may attract a fine of `2,000. However, Delhi Traffic Police has put a spanner in this plan as it apprehends that dedicated traffic lanes for the fire services will add to traffic jams. Traffic officials also conveyed that having dedicated lanes for emergency services was not feasible as it would lead to chaos on the roads since the road length in Delhi is under pressure owing to the sheer heavy volume of vehicles in the national Capital. “Besides heavy traffic movement, shortage of manpower in traffic police is also the reason to oppose the move,” said a senior police official on the condition of anonymity.
“In the event of any emergency for the fire engines, traffic police can facilitate the movement of fire engines from the concerned fire stations to the place of fire,” said police officials, adding that dedicated lanes were earmarked for just 15 days on several stretch during the Commonwealth Games 2010 and most of the schools, colleges and Government offices were closed.
A high-level meeting, led by Chief Secretary SK Srivastava, has directed Delhi traffic police to expedite the matter and provide vetting of identified roads by some districts at the earliest. While doing so, the Government would also have to ensure proper traffic movement in congested and crowded areas in the city. Principal Secretary (Revenue) pointed out in the meeting that notification of emergency lanes is held up due to non-response of traffic police to the requests for vetting of identified roads by some districts. Officials said that the revenue department will put in place an emergency public warning system under which sirens will be installed across the city and restrictions on movement of vehicles in emergency lanes will come into effect once the sirens are sounded. During the meeting, director of Delhi Fire Service (DFS) pointed out that they are facing huge problems in congested and crowded areas.
Defending the Government move to declare emergency lane on congested and crowded areas, Divisional Commissioner (Revenue) Dharampal said countries like the US, the UK, Canada and Italy have similar emergency lanes and the Government has decided to go for them as part of efforts to strengthen the disaster management system in the city.
“In case of a disaster, sirens will be blown and immediately the dedicated lanes will have to be left for vehicles under the emergency response system. The emergency lanes will be painted blue and during normal days there will be no restrictions on plying of vehicles,” officials said.
Major roads, identified for the emergency lanes include, August Kranti Marg, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, Jail Road, Pankha Road, Chandni Chowk, Gaffar Market, Vikas Marg, Welcome Road, Geeta Colony marg, Marginal Pusta Marg, Adchini Marg, Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road, Subhash Marg, Mori Gate, Darya Ganj, Noida link Road, Rohtak Road and Vikas Marg.