The next time you see a traffic policeman engaged in an intense discussion with a rickshaw puller or roadside vendor do not assume them to be talking about a challan. The traffic policeman may just be seeking the vendors’ help in dealing with jams in the area.
To give this idea shape, the Delhi Traffic Police will soon engage in a “planned manner” with those who spend considerable time on the streets to train them and thereby help prevent traffic violations, Sandeep Goel, Joint CP (Traffic), told The Hindu .
The initiative will focus on the city’s peripheral areas like Seemapuri, Khajuri Khas, Badarpur, Mehrauli, Najafgarh, Kapashera, Burari and Bawana where the traffic situation is as bad as some parts of Central Delhi, but the infrastructure poor.
Traffic policemen deployed in these areas will choose lean hours on select days to gather people and have brief interactions with them.
“We will enter into a partnership with the public. We will educate them about traffic rules, will take their views on local traffic problems, ask them to inform us about faulty road engineering and teach them to prevent congestion in their surroundings,” said Mr. Goel.
The street vendors will be taught to deter motorists from parking or even unnecessarily stopping on a busy road near their area of operation. The interested vendors will be advised on the stretch they could take the responsibility for.
The auto drivers and e-rickshaw drivers will first be educated on how parking vehicles at wrong spots affects traffic.
Once the drivers themselves are disciplined, they will be engaged to help avoid congestion. However, the vendors or drivers will be informed that they are not to take the law into their hands or even try to “force” any of these decongestion attempts on motorists.
Instead, the vendors will be encouraged to call the local traffic police personnel for assistance if they notice congestion building up at any stretch.
Around a decade ago, another initiative ‘Special Traffic Wardens Scheme’ had called for greater public participation. People from all walks of life had been roped in to help with traffic management and had been issued identity cards.
That initiative, however, had met with limited success.
