Rajahmundry: Traffic cops on duty stay glued to mobile phones

Rajahmundry: Commuters moving on the roads in the city find fault with traffic police for their failure to regulate vehicular traffic.

The situation was bad especially on busy road junctions even during peak hours of the day that would cause hardships to them.

Of late, many of the the traffic police personnel are seen talking on their mobile phones continuously. Many of the others are preoccupied with chatting or browsing while still others are glued to teir mobile phones watching video clips and ignoring the very fundamental duty of regulating the vehicular traffic. Some the traffic personnel posted at important junctions are seen sitting on their vehicles parked on road margins comfortably and speaking and chatting on their mobile phones even during busy hours.

The city has a large number of educational institutions including schools as well as professional colleges spread in and around the city. Some of the students travel to their institutions by buses arranged by their institutions. Since the early hours of the day, students, faculty members as well as employees are seen waiting at important junctions all along the national highway-16 and state highway or internal roads to catch the buses or vans to reach their places of study and work. Hundreds of buses ply on roads picking up students and employees.

The police authorities deploy traffic police to regulate the movement of vehicles and help commuters cross at the junctions and reach the pick up points. Police personnel, however, fail to discharge their duty promptly drawing criticism from commuters.

As the traffic signals at some of the important junctions hardly function regularly, police personnel have to personally regulate the traffic to avoid congestion from the early hours of the day until evening. Students and employees board buses all the way from Vemagiri, Bommuru, Hukumpeta, Morampudi, Lala Cheruvu, Housing Board Colony, Rajanagaram and beyond along NH-16 while some of them take another route like Dowleswaram, ILTD Junction, Railway Station, Shyamala Centre, Main Road, RTC Complex and other centres to reach their destinations.

Commuters allege that lack of adequate supervision on the functioning of traffic police personnel by the senior officers, they are unable to discharge their duty promptly and in some cases, the traffic constables involve the home guards to take whole responsibility of regulation of vehicular traffic while they get engaged otherwise making it very difficult for them to regulate the vehicles.

Rajahmundry urban DSP (Traffic) in-charge Bharat Mataji said, “We will check out such lapse on the part of traffic personnel and ensure their proper discharge of duty to regulate vehicular traffic for the benefit of commuters.”