Your nightmarish ride on the city roads because of faulty traffic signals may end as the government wants to convert Capital’s traffic signals into an ‘almost zero tolerance’ for faults — a model system for the entire country.
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The model, according Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), would work on a principle of ‘almost zero tolerance’ of traffic signal failures and having the entire city traffic system under 24-hour monitoring.
In a presentation made to Planning Commission, the government has proposed integration of new technologies, better-trained personnel and simulating signal system for smooth flow of traffic in the city. “We are looking at around the clock system where response time for a traffic signal failure is just a few minutes,” a commission official said.
With Commonwealth Games 2010 as the target for installation of the system, Delhi Police is likely to get additional funds for induction of new technology and upgradation of training from the next financial year. As against Rs 125 crore in 2004-05, MHA has asked for Rs 183.50 crore for Delhi Police for the year 2007-08. “A good amount of additional funds will have to be utilised to improve the traffic light system,” the official said.
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Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Qamar Ahmed told HT they were looking at three major areas for hassle-free signal system in Delhi. First, fibre connectivity for all signals for live monitoring of junctions in a control room at Teen Murti. Second, ensuring a particular traffic flow movement for each signal.
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Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Qamar Ahmed told HT they were looking at three major areas for hassle-free signal system in Delhi. First, fibre connectivity for all signals for live monitoring of junctions in a control room at Teen Murti. Second, ensuring a particular traffic flow movement for each signal.
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Third, to bring area of the Commonweath Games under the Automated Traffic Control system, now covering 102 traffic signals. ATC is a computerised system where sensors are installed under the road to gauge traffic congestion. The sensors sends a message detailing traffic flow to a main computer, which, in turn, regulates the signal, accordingly.
Traffic police also wants a dedicated power cable from discoms for the signals to meet the ‘almost zero tolerance’ target. The plan is a challenge, Ahmed admits, as he says, the capital has country’s biggest traffic signal system covering 700 intersections.
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Delhi Police has also been asked to prepare model-training programmes for police force in the country.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
