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Too Much Traffic, Too Few Cops: That’s Why You’re Invariably Late And Hassled In Bengaluru
A lone traffic policeman in Bengaluru’s Madiwala market manages vehicular flow. Image courtesy of twitter.com/blrcitytraffic.
The vehicle count in Bengaluru has been on a constant rise in recent years, but the number of traffic policemen to manage them is disproportionately low. Little efforts have been made by the government to address this problem due to which the city is in this mess. Across 44 traffic police stations in Bengaluru, just about 4,600 officers are on duty. The sanctioned strength is over 6,000 and the police are still in the process of filling up vacancies. Bengaluru hosts as many as 79,00,000 vehicles.
Deccan Herald quoted a police officer as saying, “There is a need for more police personnel to manage the growing traffic. Recently, the traffic police department had sought more personnel. While recruitment could take a year, training constables would take another year. It would take two years before a traffic policeman takes up field duty. In the interim, we have to depend on home guards to manage traffic.”
According to experts, the city witnesses a million vehicles per day from outside. Originally, the city’s roads were designed to accommodate 15 lakh vehicles.
“The city’s roads can only take 15 lakh vehicles. The few policemen on the streets find it hard to manage traffic, which is not disciplined,” he added. Furthermore, adding to the woes is the shift system and weekly offs which are given to the police, resulting in stress for the cops, and consequent loss of work efficiency.
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