Transport Minister Mr. Gopal Rai will visit ITO crossing to observe the coordination trial run tomorrow at 9.30 a.m, said a brief communiqué about a preparatory event for the odd-even scheme to be held on Thursday morning.
The busy Central Delhi junction, however, saw neither Mr. Rai at the scheduled time, nor any coordination between the civil defence volunteers and policemen.
With no apparent strategy visible for as long as the “trial run” continued, everyone from the average commuter to the traffic policemen and the civil defence volunteers remained nervous about how the odd-even vehicle rationing scheme would fare.
As many as 16 of the 6,000 civil defence volunteers deputed to help policemen prosecute cars turned up at ITO for the trial, but the confusion was telling.
But anyone who had something to share beyond their enthusiasm, the display of placards, or was in doubt, refused to come on record, citing a gag order.
Those who spoke on condition of anonymity said their queries — about the trial or the real exercise a day later — had not been answered to their satisfaction.
“To begin with, how can we conduct a trial? Where was the trial and how was any demonstration going to take place when the police have no prosecuting power today? Can they stop any vehicle and show us how vehicles without exemptions will be identified and flagged? The policemen at this junction are busy regulating traffic,” said a civil defence volunteer.
The follow up question — what will they do when the new rule is enforced — elicited diametrically opposite responses.
Some volunteers said they will spot vehicles contravening the rule, while others said they will offer roses to the driver with an awareness message.
The second set of respondents received little cheer from the policemen. They said that if they do not receive assistance in the vigil, the couple of minutes that it takes to distribute the roses shall prove counter-productive.
Yet, the volunteers chose to play safe and maintained that they would not alert the traffic police about any contravention and limit their roles to creating awareness.
Aside, they said that Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi’s repeated warnings against volunteers stopping vehicles on their own also made them sceptical about taking any proactive action.
Later, Mr. Rai’s entry and encouraging remarks did appear to lift spirits, but did little to address the confusion.
Apart from the police and civil defence members, the teams meant to check the odd-even violations are to have representation from the National Cadet Corps, the State Transport Department and the National Service Scheme (NSS). However, no member of any of those categories was present for the “coordination” exercise.
Also, the symbolic presence of civil defence volunteers from its Central Division could not be replicated at other points.
For instance, no volunteers turned up at the Ashram chowk, one of the busiest intersections in the city located close to the Delhi-Noida Expressway.
An enquiry revealed that the dry run visits remained cancelled as the duty sheets were not ready.
