- Vehicles overtaking and running at high speed, even traffic police not able to control them
Chronicle Reporter, Bhopal
The BRTS built five years ago was removed last month by the Municipal Corporation on the instructions of the government, but due to not making dividers in the middle of the road, the risk of accidents has increased.
However, traffic signals costing crores of rupees installed at the intersections of the roads of the capital have failed. Now after the removal of the BRTS corridor, drivers are overtaking and running at high speed. In such a situation, even the traffic police have become helpless in controlling the traffic. The approximately 25 km long BRTS from Bairagarh to 11th Mile of Narmadapuram Road in the capital was built five years ago at a cost of approximately Rs 269 crore. Now after the Mohan government came, the decision was taken to demolish this BRTS. As soon as the order to demolish the BRTS was issued before the code of conduct for the Lok Sabha elections was imposed in March, the Municipal Corporation immediately started removing it.
Road divider construction work with very slow speed – Municipal Corporation removed the BRTS corridor from Bairagarh to Barkatullah University on Narmadapuram Road between 15th to 25th March. Till now, only about 15 km stretch could be broken. Now the work of making a road divider has started. But the work is going on at a snail’s pace. A 2 feet high and 1 feet wide divider has been built in the middle of the road in the BRTS portion from Bairagarh to Lal Ghati intersection, but beyond this, the construction work of the divider is going on at a very slow pace.
Vehicles drive haphazardly as soon as the road appears wide
The removal of the BRTS corridor may have brought relief to the general public, but the risk of accidents has also increased. In fact, as soon as the road appeared wide, the drivers started driving at high speed. Especially two-wheeler and four-wheeler drivers started overtaking other vehicles at high speed. Two days before overtaking on the route from Board Office to Rani Kamalapati station, the car driver narrowly avoided hitting the bike rider. Actually, it was the fault of the young man riding the sports bike. He suddenly overtook and cut in front of Pragati petrol pump. This saved him from colliding with the car. Eyewitnesses said that if there was BRTS, such accidents would not have happened.
25 thousand vehicles run daily
In the 11-mile stretch from Sant Hirdaram Nagar that includes the BRTS corridor, there is a daily movement of about 25 thousand vehicles and there are more than 20 major intersections, out of which only a dozen intersections have signals. The remaining intersections are used as crossings without signals. At these major intersections, traffic police are present for traffic control.
Municipal Corporation has removed BRTS corridors. Now the part in front of BU till the 11 Mile intersection has to be removed. Will remove this also soon. Along with this, after the road has been widened, the work of making a divider in the middle has been started to prevent accidents. Currently the work of the divider has been done till Hamidia Collectorate. Road dividers for the entire 11 miles are expected to be built in the next two months.
– Prem Shankar Shukla,
PRO, Municipal Corporation, Bhopal.
