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Traffic mismanagement could have led to Lucknow police commissioner’s exit: Officials
Poor traffic mismanagement on highways as well chaos on different routes and crossings inside the Lucknow city is being talked about as a major reason behind shifting of the 1994 batch IPS officer DK Thakur as Lucknow Commissioner of Police (CP)
Poor traffic mismanagement on highways as well chaos on different routes and crossings inside the Lucknow city is being talked about as a major reason behind shifting of the 1994 batch IPS officer DK Thakur as Lucknow Commissioner of Police (CP). Thakur has been replaced by 1993 batch IPS officer SB Shirodkar, who listed streamlining traffic among his priorities.
“Improving traffic of the city is one of our top priorities and we will come up with a fool proof plan to streamline it soon,” Shirodkar said.
A senior police official requesting anonymity said the “government was unhappy over traffic management of Lucknow” when several VVIPs were caught in traffic chaos during at oath taking ceremony of Yogi Adityanath government at Ekana Stadium on March 25.
“The CM had asked the police officials concerned to prepare a fool proof plan to improve traffic management on Shaheed Path and around Ekana stadium,” this official said.
“Traffic mismanagement at Shaheed Path again got highlighted after LuLu mall was made operational recently on July 10. Commuters faced regular traffic jam on the stretch in front of the mall due to no proper parking as well as improper movement of traffic,” the officer added.
“Similarly, traffic chaos was reported almost daily on Lucknow-Ayodhya highway from Shaheed Path to BBD University. The CM has also expressed unhappiness at the haphazardly parked trucks and other heavy vehicles on highways leading to traffic chaos as well as accidents,” the officer said.
“Recent traffic chaos on the Lucknow-Kanpur road recently after heavy vehicles were diverted from Junabganj turn in Banthar for Kanwar Yatra in the month of Sawan also didn’t go down well with the government,” the officer said.
Another police official said UP police additional director general (ADG), law and order, Prashant Kumar along with other officials on Sunday visited Lucknow-Unnao border to analyse reasons behind frequent traffic chaos on Lucknow-Kanpur highway. “Over the last few days, the highway has been blocked for over 10 hours daily during night and senior officials were getting regular complaints about mismanagement of Lucknow police in this regard. Since the problem was not resolved despite multiple warnings to streamline traffic,” the officer said.
He said the ADG Prashant Kumar ordered to remove diversion from Junabganj turn in Banthra area of Lucknow as long trucks weren’t able to take turn from there and this led to vehicles queuing up on the highway.
He said inspector in-charge of Banthra police station, Ashok Sonkar was removed on Sunday night reportedly for not being able to manage traffic. But, the removal of inspector level officer failed to satisfy the top officers and subsequently Thakur was shifted.
