The East Fort bus stand area is among the busiest locations in the city. Thousands of people cross the road here every day. Crossing the main road from the Gandhi Park side to the bus-stand and the entrance to the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple is a risky affair, as there is no traffic signal here nor any traffic constable to regulate vehicle flow. With a continuous stream of vehicles and bumper-to-bumper traffic, people have no other go except cross the road through small gaps between slow-moving vehicles. This is a risk to life and limb, especially for senior citizens, women and children. Traffic authorities should install a traffic signal here or at least post traffic constables to enable safe pedestrian crossing.
G. Radhakrishnan
Karikkakam
Looking the other way
The police and the city Corporation authorities often issue warnings against illegal encroachment on public property, unauthorised parking, unlawful wayside markets, misuse of footpaths, and so on. But rampant violation of all these warnings is the order of the day. The illegal construction on footpaths at Maruthankuzhy, parking of autorickshaws right in front of the bus stop at the Kesavadasapuram junction, open sale of meat on the footpath at the Attakulangara junction, vendors crowding the footpath in front of the Supplyco supermarket at East Fort, parking of cars for an entire day on the footpaths at Nalanchira are some cases in point.
There appears to be some connivance with at least a minority of law enforcers for obvious reasons. The covert support given by political and religious organisations to the law violators seems to be silencing the authorities concerned. There is no point in issuing orders if these are openly violated.
The authorities should have the will power to implement orders if they really want the situation to improve.
A.G. George
Mannanthala
Cooking gas woes
City residents are facing an acute shortage of cooking gas for the past few months. In Ernakulam when there was a problem, government officials such as the Labour Welfare Officer and the Chief Minister himself interfered at the earliest and settled the problem.
But in Thiruvananthapuram, even though three months have passed, no one is looking into the woes of the people. Why this discrimination? There is no shortage of government officials here. MLAs, MPs, Chief Secretary, and Ministers are all here in the capital city. While in other States, cooking gas delivery is made within minutes, there is months’ delay in Thiruvananthapuram. This is a hardship for the common man and a shame on the government.
S.K. Swamy
Thaliyal
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