Traffic jam has become a regular problem for the people of Hazaribagh. There are several spots in the town where it has become a daily norm. The root cause of this problem is the regularly increasing number of vehicles and the same old roads getting narrower with every passing day.
After creation of Jharkhand both the population and area of Hazaribagh town has increased on a rapid pace. When it was a part of Bihar, there was a municipality having 22 wards and in 2008 it became municipal council of 32 wards. On this parameter, it is expected to be a town having Municipal Corporation after five years. Though the town has expanded but the main town, where the main market, school, colleges, court, cinema halls and important offices are, has actually shrunk. Within this 10-12 years number of vehicles has increased enormously. 2,25,504 new vehicles came on road between 2001- June 2013.
As per district transport office records more than 34,000 bikes had been registered during this period. 14274 cars, 3194 taxies, 3657 jeeps, 4712 tractors and 4460 trailers had been registered during this span of time. The number of trucks, buses and other vehicles are 12293, 767 and 3878 respectively.The administration is trying its best to give the people a jam free town but without widening the roads it is not possible. DC Sunil Kumar accepts it and says that here the roads are nearly 7-8 meters wide while the need is of 15-20 meter wide roads. For increasing the width of the roads the district administration is making proposal and very soon it will be sent to state government, he added.
lack of knowledge of traffic rules and traffic sense is another main cause of this problem. Young bikers can be seen everyday increasing the intensity of traffic jam problem. Hazaribagh police is regularly organizing special drives to check this problem and during last 6-8 months some positive result has come but still the denizens have not become used to the traffic rules. SP Manoj Kaushik says that to check the problem his department has initiated several measures such as making one way routes, installing barriers on different places, regular duty of traffic police on important points etc. Very soon electronic traffic signals are going to be installed in the town which will certainly minimize the problem, he added.