Catering to emerging traffic pattern on the city roads, the Bengaluru Traffic Police (BTP) is now setting up four new traffic police stations for better traffic management at the micro level. These will come up in Bellandur and Mahadevapura in East Division, Hennur in North Division and Talaghattapura in West Division.
“Two Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) (Traffic) sub divisions will also be set up at HSR Layout and Vijayanagar soon,” M. A. Saleem, Special Commissioner (Traffic) told The Hindu.
With the outer areas such as Bellandur and Mahadevapura waking up to traffic snarls again as physical work spaces resume, traffic problems were being frequently reported. A Whitefield Rising member said more police stations will definitely help residents of the area.
“One of the things we had requested for was a Whitefield division. We were under East Bengaluru. It’s a massively large area. When the Whitefield DCP division started, we saw how things got better. A new traffic division brings in much more centrality. Even with a measure like not allowing heavy vehicles on ORR, you can see the difference. Our first Whitefield rising protest in 2015 was about heavy vehicles choking State highway 35 that goes through Varthur village. Traffic police had stopped it, but didn’t continue with it. Seven years later, it has been implemented,” said the member.
“I still don’t think they understand how bad it is in the outer areas – chaos with the wrong side driving, BMTC buses not stopping in the right stop, etc. We welcome focus on outer areas, but more needs to be done on enforcement of the rules,” the member added.
In the North Division, there are now only four traffic police stations and the new one is expected to bring in more policing to the areas of Hennur, Thanisandra, K.G. Halli and others. “Many of these areas did not have much traffic policing all these days. But, it will bring in more attention there and also lessen the burden on Yelahanka traffic police station,” said Mr. Saleem.
As the population of Hennur has increased, residents feel that a new traffic station would be helpful. “The population here has grown and if all the logistics are properly worked out, then it will be very beneficial,” said Muniraju, a resident of Hennur.
With Kanakapura Road passing through, Talaghattapura residents had a long standing demand for a separate traffic police station in the locality. “The Kumaraswamy Layout Traffic Police has a vast area coming under its jurisdiction and they do not have enough human resource to manage the traffic on all of these main roads. Whenever we raised issues, they would depute officers only to those particular spots. The Konanakunte junction has now become more problematic than Silk Board junction and there are also other main roads like Vasanthapura main road which need more regulation. The new police station would help with such issues, mainly with respect to human resources,” said Vajapeyam Srivatsa, of Changemakers of Kanakapura.
Kala Krishnaswamy, DCP Traffic, East Divisionpart said a new police station will definitely help in regulating the traffic as there will be more staff on the ground.
COMMents
SHARE