City looks to private guards to man traffic

Faced with the daunting task of managing the teeming traffic, the City police will soon have private security guards shouldering arms with them and sharing the onerous task.

What with grade separators, metro rail project and other constructions going on in various pockets turning traffic management a policeman’s nightmare, civic agencies are forced to hire private security guards.

Currently, according to Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) M A Saleem, private security guards are being used for manning and directing traffic along Namma Metro stretches and around Electronic City. According to Saleem, in most locations, their own personnel or home guards deployed along with them manage the situation.

Meanwhile, a few security agencies, it is understood, have bid for the tenders floated to assist in the traffic management. However, if the past experience was any indicator, the civic agencies’ renewed bid could again come to a nought.

For, in January 2011, BDA had called for tenders to “provide security guards / traffic guards for traffic diversion at proposed construction of flyover at different Junctions on ORR”. The total tender amount being Rs 2.2 lakh for providing 165 security men to manage seven junctions along Outer Ring Road from Kalyananagar to Hebbal for a period of one year. However, by September, the tenders were recalled having elicit very poor response.

Apart from poor response, ‘non-requirement’ of security guards along the stretch saw the BDA decide not deploy private security. “We had called for only one junction along Hennur Road for three months. But even this was pre-closed, as the traffic movement was opened up, at other locations, easing the flow of vehicles along the stretch,” the BDA official said.