The construction of a divider at Padavala Ravu Centre is a long-pending demand of the people living in surrounding areas. It has the endorsement of the traffic police, but it does not seem to be a priority for the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation which has to construct it. The Karlmarx (Eluru) Road is very broad at that point and heavy vehicles tend to speed there. In the absence of a divider pedestrians keep crossing the road all along the stretch of the road. Several accidents have occurred at the spot. A divider will force the vehicles to slow down and pedestrians to cross at one single point.
With the Dasara coming up the people of Padavala Revu are again in the grip of fear as all the heavy vehicles on National Highway-9 are diverted on to Eluru Road. This is not the only point the traffic police do not see eye to eye with the municipal corporation.
Entry points
At Krishna Lanka on National Highway No.5 and 9 is yet another bone of contention. The traffic police had asked the municipal corporation to close 20 out of the 32 entry points through which people living along the National Highway access it. Only 12 such entry points are safe, according to traffic police.
This again does not seem to be a priority for the municipal corporation. Meanwhile, these 20 entry points are potential accident spots with road users having narrow brushes with death and injury everyday.
There is nobody in the municipal corporation to heed to the request of the traffic police to fix high visibility cat-eyes on stretches of the national highway that goes past Bhavanipuram, Gollapudi, and other areas right up to Ibrahimpatnam.
In a bid to make optimum use of manpower the traffic police have written to the Municipal Corporation to block gaps in the divider the busiest part of Mahatma Gandhi (Bandar) Road. The traffic police have suggested that the gaps in the divider be closed temporarily with mobile concrete blocks that were being used in Hyderabad and even Guntur Municipal Corporations. The corporation has been asked to block entrances to Atta Rattayya Street, Swaraj Maidan, RTA Office road, and Police Parade Grounds.
The top officials are finding it difficult to find personnel to man these gaps in the dividers which have become potential accident spots. The mobile concrete blocks are some sort of a boon for them.
