‘Make Nagpur accident-free’ Divisional Commr Bidari to top officers

Staff Reporter

Finally, the administration appears to have swung into action over the parking problem faced by Nagpurians. Vijayalakshmi Bidari, Divisional Commissioner, chaired a meeting of senior officers at her office on Thursday and asked them to implement the concept of ‘accident-free’ city in Nagpur. Also, she asked various zone offices of Traffic Control Branch of City Police to participate in the process. The meeting chaired by Bidari was held in the Divisional Commissioner’s office here. Aswathi Dorje, Joint Commissioner of Police; Manoj Kumar Suryawanshi, Chairman of Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT); Dr Abhijit Chaudhary, Municipal Commissioner; Anchal Sud Goyal, Additional Commissioner; Asha Pathan, Additional Collector; Dr Ashwini Patil, Deputy Commissioner of Police, and other senior officers of various departments attended the meeting. Bidari asked the officials to create awareness among the citizens regarding traffic rules in Nagpur city and implement permanent measures to prevent accidents and also give priority to implementing the concept of ‘accident-free city’.

The measures should be implemented jointly by the Traffic Control Branch of City Police, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), and Public Works Department (PWD), she stressed. She asked the departments concerned to conduct zone-wise review of the city and finalise the location to create parking facility. Of 75 roads identified for creation of parking facility, work of survey, marking, and installing the boards was completed in case of 18 roads in the first and second phase. Instead of adopting phase-wise approach for completing the remaining work, she asked the officials concerned to plan for simultaneous completion. She also gave instructions to provide information regarding accident-prone spots to citizens through boards installed along the roads. As for traffic management, the city has been divided into 10 zones. Special awards will be given to the zones having best performance in ensuring smooth flow of traffic, and accident-free zones. The Divisional Commissioner said that review of traffic safety would be taken every three months. She called upon each zone to increase participation in implementation of the concept of ‘accident-free city’.

Dorje said that purchase of various materials was approved to modernise the Traffic Control Branch of City Police. Dr Chaudhary said that ‘smart traffic signals’ would be installed in the city. In Phase-4, construction of 33 cement roads 23.45 km in length was planned to be completed ‘before 2025’. From April to December 2023, total 3,614 potholes measuring 60,904 sq mtrs were repaired. During the meeting, various other related issues also were discussed. These included traffic signal project, various development works obstructing smooth flow of traffic, parking facilities along various roads, traffic regulation during construction of cement roads, plugging potholes on the roads, use of new technology for traffic signals, availability of land at Khapri for parking of city buses, accident-prone spots etc. The officials of Deputy Regional Transport Office, Revenue and Police Departments, NMC, Nagpur Improvement Trust, Maha Metro, Public Works Department, Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited also were present in the meeting.