Infrastructure India: A Long Road Ahead...When the cities will buckle?

Chennai- T. Nagar bursting at the seams by R. Sujatha
Traffic came to standstill, owing to festival shoppers’ crowd

— PHOTO: S.S.KUMARBUMPER TO BUMPER: Traffic on Bhashyam Street near the Panagal Park junction in T. Nagar on Friday.

CHENNAI: Shoppers who came to T. Nagar on Friday would have probably regretted their decision. Vehicular traffic in T. Nagar came to a standstill several times, thanks to the festival shopping crowd.

Police had a tough time regulating traffic as vehicles piled up along Venkatnarayana Road, G.N. Chetty Road, North Usman Road and Thyagaraya Road by noon.

Shoppers struggled to move around and autorickshaw drivers demanded exorbitant fare to drive through overcrowded streets. K. Saravanan, a car driver, said, “It took two hours to negotiate a two-km stretch from the Kodambakkam junction to T. Nagar. The traffic hold-up began at the Kodambakkam junction around 11 a.m. When we entered T. Nagar, it was 1 p.m.”

While MTC buses managed to wind their way slowly, cars, autorickshaws and two-wheelers clogged the roads. Traffic was heavy around the junctions near Kodambakkam-North Usman Road, Venkatnarayana Road-Burkit Road and Thyagaraya Road-Dr. Nair Road. Many who hired autorickshaws or cabs got off midway and tried to walk to the destinations.

At most places, pedestrians struggled to cross the road.

C.N.R. Selvaraj, who works in T. Nagar, said he had to wait for 10 minutes before he could cross G. N. Chetty Road near the Kannadasan statue. Though traffic police towed away vehicles from several roads, it did not deter many from parking along the road margins on other roads such as Thyagaraya Road and Bhashyam Street.

A commuter had a hard time bargaining with an autorickshaw driver for a trip from Coats Road to the Doraiswamy Road junction, a distance of about 1 km.

The driver demanded Rs.40. Another auto driver charged Rs.70 for a trip from Panagal Park to Trust Puram, three km away.

Sources in the Mambalam and Soundarapandianar Angadi police stations said there were no complaints of missing children. Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Shakeel Akhter said that since certain traffic regulations were introduced recently, it led to some confusion. By evening, motorists were getting familiar with the changes and the traffic flow became easier, he said.
Chennai- T. Nagar bursting at the seams: The Hindu
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Infrastructure India: A Long Road Ahead

Motor Vehicles Act to be amended to meet future needs: Kamal Nath

Illegal Parking
Ministry of Road Transport & Highways
Wednesday, September 23, 2009 19:27 IST
The Minister for Road Transport & Highways Shri Kamal Nath has said that a comprehensive review of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 would be done so as to meet the future requirements of the country. He said that a Committee has been constituted to review the Motor Vehicles Act and it will give its suggestions in three months time. Shri Nath said,” We need to not only learn lessons from the past but also stimulate what would happen in future.” Thus, the amendments in the Act would take care of the best practises abroad and would not only “serve the present but also future”. The Minister was speaking at the launch of the National Campaign for “Reduction of Road Fatalities”, a joint initiative of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and International Roads Federation (IRF), a Washington and Geneva based worldwide platform for Road Safety.

Speaking at the function in Delhi, Shri Nath said that we need to make not ony 20km of roads per day but also ensure that they are safe. The roads would be built with safety stndards and no over or under engineering will be done, he said.

As per the WHO's global status report on road safety, India tops the global list of deaths in road accidents with 125,000 fatalities and at least 2.2 million serious injuries each year. India accounts for 10 per cent of global road accident deaths. The national campaign has been launched with the target of reducing road accident deaths by 50 per cent by the year 2012.

Shri Brahm Dutt, Secretary, MoRTH and Shri Nirmaljit Singh, Director General & Special Secretary, MoRTHwere also present on the occasion. Gre5/
Motor Vehicles Act to be amended to meet future needs: Kamal Nath

Illegal Parking on carriageways, berms and footpaths
Greatest menace to road safety is illegal parking of vehicles on carriage ways, berms, footpaths, highways and streets especially by the commercial vehicles. This restricts the road space available for driving to less than 40% of road surfaces paved for smooth flow of vehicles. Strict laws should be brought in to curb menace of illegal parking in metro cities and on the National Highways. Safety norms are violated in connivance with traffic police who accept bribes from the traffic violators and law breakers.

Tamilnadu ESM Organisation

Chennai Parking Lots are Mafia Dens
Here are some facets of TEXCO which is Tamilnadu Ex- Servicemen Corporation. This is an organisation meant for welfare of ESM but employs ESM/ dependents on paper only and hardly any genuine ESM. The whole organisation is steeped in corruption and fool proof methods/ systems devised for siphoning off revenue accrued from parking lots. It is comparable to any Italian Mafia Organisation of the world but at comparably lower level as there is no violence and shooting involved. Does Army Resettlement Directorate exercise any control or have audit to check on who is benefiting from such a massive organisation with so much revenue? The post of General Manager is either an IAS officer or Retired Armed Forces Officer appointed by Tamilnadu Government.

Relatives are not ESM
I interviewed a dozen of the so called ESM employed in the parking lots of Chennai Corporation, not one of them was an ESM. When questioned how he got employed: answer was "I am ESM relative". How can a relative become a dependent? Another scheme of employing ESM for Aavin milk vending booths has died its natural death because of corruption. The ESM were forced to sell the booths to local thugs on a monthly payment.

Comments
Please read the laudable aims and objectives of TEXCO which is given in link below. There is urgent need for accountability and responsibility. The ground realities are not checked. TEXCO uniform and badge is worn by all the thugs. The ESM name is getting unnecessarily sullied/ tarnished/ smeared/ muddled with Mafia activity of thugs who really man the Chennai Parking Lots. The civilians get to feel that ESM are corrupt as they are cheated at the Metro Parking Areas. TEXCO