Finding remedy for city's traffic woes

Seeking solutions

Traffic is considered to be one issue which affects each and every resident of the city. Especially in metros, one ends spending hours on traffic jams which can stretch up to kilometres. And to curb the same, the government has tried various initiatives like car-free day, so that we have fewer vehicles on roads and people take public transport for work and also get a chance to ride their bicycles.

The seventh edition of FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) Face to Face with Government was based on traffic concerns of National Capital Region (NCR).

Commissioners of Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida, Dr Muktesh Chander, Navdeep Singh Wirk and Kiran S respectively, came together to discuss what are the major issues faced in metropolitan cities.

Mocking the condition of roads in Delhi, Dr Chander begins with saying how a road in Vikas Nagar area of Delhi has a urinal right in the middle of the road and how every passer-by has to go through it while passing the road.

“The roads of Delhi are not keeping in pace with the vehicular population. Despite having the Metro, there is a severe shortage of public transport,” he says.

Also present during the discussion was Mumbai-based Kiran Gera, Past President, FICCI FLO, who tells how traffic in Mumbai is much disciplined than what we have
in Delhi.

“Firstly, Mumbai is very linear. It’s not spread like Delhi. We have only three to four major arterial roads and if they get clog, it becomes very difficult. There is a lot more traffic than we had in the past, but we have a very good system of local trains. They connect the entire city, and people commute more conveniently than they can in Delhi,” she tells Metrolife.

However, one cannot deny that people in Delhi don’t abide by traffic rules, where instant changing of lanes, crossing the red light and over speeding are few of the common occurrences on roads.

Here Gera says that people in Mumbai are fairly disciplined when it comes to
traffic rules.

“The general mentality of people in Mumbai is very different from people in Delhi. For instance, everybody stops at a red light. Maybe that’s because there is very little space, and even changing lanes is not possible.”

In the end, Gera emphasises on the importance of maintaining strictness on roads so that people follow rules.

“Where we pay a menial Rs 100 challan, there if we have to pay Rs 2,000 or
more, we will always be more careful.  We need to give danda to the people, because we refuse to be self disciplined. To maintain that, we need a punitive punishment, like it’s there in the foreign countries.”