Thursday, March 31, 2011

CWG parking lot will now be a shelter for cluster buses

Thursday, March 31, 2011




Transport dept acts after Shunglu Committee report questions future use of Games projects

Finally moving forward on the Sunehri and Kushak Nallah parking lot, the government has decided that the Transport department will use it for cluster bus parking and will also pay the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) an annual rental. In a high-level meeting held on Tuesday, it was decided that the lot will be handed over to the Transport department for parking cluster buses.

The decision comes days after the Shunglu Committee report questioned the legacy value of several Commonwealth Games projects. The Shunglu Committee had noted that "legacy use was unclear during the project execution and even after project completion".

The government has now gone on an overdrive to tie up the loose ends before it publishes its final report.

The decision to construct the parking lot over the Sunehri and Kushak Nallahs was conceptualised in June 2008. The project was executed at the cost of Rs 321 crore. The lot has been ready since August 31, 2010, though the completion was delayed by three months.

Spread over 21,875 sq m by covering the Sunehri Nallah (behind Lodhi Hotel upto Dayal Singh College along Lodhi Road) and the Kushak Nallah (from Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium south gate to the Bhisham Pitamah flyover), the parking lot has been constructed in the form of an elevated road and can accommodate 820 buses. Prime facilities including modern toilet complexes, restrooms, paved footpaths, a well-planned drainage system and underground utility ducts.

The Transport department will have to pay the MCD Rs 7 crore annually for its usage and, in turn, will provide free parking to cluster bus owners. The Transport department claimed they did not want to take over the parking lot till the cluster buses arrived.

"Buses of at least five clusters can be accommodated here. What the Shunglu Committee does not realise is that had we rented out the parking lot in October itself, we would have ended up paying huge amounts to the MCD without the lot being put to use," said a senior Transport official.

The first batch of 50 buses from the first cluster, being run by Star Bus, was to arrive by January. By April, 232 buses were to be up and running. The project has, however, run into delays; not a single bus has been launched till now.


Posted by Rajeev Lochan Sharma at 1:11 PM 0 comments

NHAI, PWD pass the buck as Ashram suffers

Thursday, March 31, 2011




There seems to be no immediate relief for commuters caught in the traffic mess at Ashram Chowk. The NHAI, which had appointed a consultant to find solutions to decongest the crossing, has abandoned it. It claims the proposed Kalindi Kunj bypass will offload traffic at the crossing and, hence, there is no need on its part to go head with the decongestion plan. 

A couple of months after NHAI floated a tender to engage a consultant for preparing the decongestion plan, Delhi PWD also invited bids for a similar work in September 2009. However, the latter scrapped the tender saying it would only be a duplication of what NHAI was doing. 

An NHAI official said that after the consultant had submitted the first part of the study report, the consultancy was terminated. "The NH-2, which is under our jurisdiction, starts from the Ashram crossing below the flyover. Since the snarl had become unmanageable, we had engaged a consultant to find a solution. Now with the Delhi PWD reviving the Kalindi Kunj bypass, the traffic heading towards Faridabad would largely use the new road," the officer said. 

Sources in Delhi PWD said that they are only consulting a firm for the project for now, and it would take time to award the work. This means, it would take a few more years for the new road to become operational. While the bypass road is likely to improve the traffic flow below the flyover at this congested crossing, there is no relief in sight for the Ring Road traffic. 

This issue has brought to light how there is complete lack of coordination among authorities, thus aggravating the problems. "Ring Road is not under our jurisdiction. The agency concerned (PWD) should find a solution to this mess. We are confined only to the highway and not the flyover," said the NHAI official. 

The flyover on the Ring Road at the Ashram crossing gets choked during peak hours on all weekdays. "There is multiplicity of authority, and that's resulting in lack of coordination. The NHAI is doing what it deems fit even as the mess is worsening. And this is not just limited to Delhi but also the adjoining towns of Fariadabd and Gurgaon," pointed out Rohit Baluja, president of IRTE. 

The Ashram Chowk crisis has come as an indicator of how a critical congestion scare is looming large over the capital. Transport experts say Delhi is well on its way to becoming the next Bangkok, notorious for nightmarish traffic jams. There are also ominous indicators across the city of intersections and flyovers breaching their designed carrying capacity a lot earlier than estimated.


Posted by Rajeev Lochan Sharma at 1:11 PM 0 comments

Special traffic force comes back in action

Thursday, March 31, 2011




They look like any other traffic policemen on Delhi's roads but, unlike them, these officers are merciless when it comes to prosecuting violators. A group of specially trained traffic men called the special task force (STF) are now on Delhi's roads to rein in violations in troubled areas through saturated checks.

"Although intensified traffic management brought much relief, there are areas like BRT corridor, railway stations, market areas and no-entry points among others where general traffic policing did not curb violations," said an officer of Delhi traffic police.

Following success during the Commonwealth Games, Delhi traffic police on Saturday re-launched its STF with 10 teams for 10 districts. Absence of technical gadgets, habitual traffic violations and instances of trafficmen's connivance with violators prompted the re-launch of STF, the officer said.

"They not only catch violators, but also keep a strict vigil on their colleagues to identify those who connive with violators," said Satyendra Garg, joint commissioner of police (traffic).


Posted by Rajeev Lochan Sharma at 1:10 PM 0 comments

Traffic cops go by the book to nail ‘tint’ offenders

Wednesday, March 30, 2011




With every effort to make windows of cars shed their tint going in vain, the Delhi Traffic Police has now decided to go by the book to teach violators a lesson.

As many as 22,000 challans were issued by the Traffic Police to motorists driving vehicles with tinted windows between January and February, but it seemed to have no effect on the residents of Delhi. As police noted that the Rs-100 fine for such offence was not helping, the department opted for a change in strategy, which refers to Section 22(a) of the Rules of Road Regulations. According to this, the department can direct violators to report back to the police in 72 hours.

Now, in a new drive against tinted glasses that was on between March 3 and to March 15, the Taffic department issued 4,337 challans, and has started issuing "report-back" directions, spurring as many as 3,814 violators to remove the dark films from their cars on the spot.

"In these 3,814 cases, the offenders did not want to go in for the hassle of reporting back to the Traffic Police. When a direction is issued, the driving licence or the registration certificate of the offender is seized, and returned only when he reports back after rectifying the issue," said Satyendra Garg, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic).

However, as many as 2,855 directions were issued for violations such as tinted glasses, pressure horns (56 cases) and defective number plates (2,726 cases).

"As many as 2,401 offenders — out of a total of 2,855 — reported back to the department after rectifying the flaws in their vehicles. Of those who did not respond, 121 were summoned by the court and subsequently challaned," said Garg.


Posted by Rajeev Lochan Sharma at 1:10 PM 0 comments

HC orders inquiry into parking mafia

Wednesday, March 30, 2011




In an order that could put an end to the widely prevalent network between parking mafia and the police in the city, the Delhi high court on Wednesday directed the Delhi Police commissioner to inquire into one such nexus at Mangalam commercial complex in Rohini. "Such a nexus cannot be tolerated in ademocratic polity. The allegations raised are serious. Delhi government has a responsibility to curb the same ruthlessly. We add with a note of caution," said a bench of chief justice Dipak Misra and justice Sanjiv Khanna, while issuing notice to the Delhi government, Delhi Police commissioner, joint CP (vigilance) and the Delhi Development Authority (DDA).

The court also sought a detailed report by May 4 from the police commissioner and the vigilance department.

RK Singh, lawyer for the petitioner Shamsher Kaushik, argued in court: "Parking areas in Delhi are a breeding ground for criminal activities. Free parking areas are converted into paid parking, thanks to such a nexus. Delhi Police annually earned around R1,000 crore in this manner."

The vigilance department of Delhi Police had recommended to the commissioner about filing of an FIR against SHO Rohini, four other policemen and two men working for the parking contractor. A sting operation had revealed the policemen's involvement in the running the unauthorised vehicle parking on a DDA plot.

However, as reported by Hindustan Times on March 24, commissioner BK Gupta directed only "departmental proceedings" against the accused, it was revealed in a reply to an RTI query by Kaushik.

"Information received through RTI confirmed it was an unauthorised parking area from where the mafia and police made money. Anyone who complained were threatened by police personnel," Kaushik said.

A day after HT published the report, the commissioner directed to file an FIR against the said policemen and persons. The policemen were also transferred to police lines.


Posted by Rajeev Lochan Sharma at 1:09 PM 0 comments

Arts Commission approves HC parking, finally

Tuesday, March 29, 2011




The Delhi Urban Arts Commission (DUAC) has finally given a go-ahead to an under-construction multi-level underground parking being built opposite the Delhi high court. This after sending back the proposal several times in 2010. Earlier, the court had asked the DUAC to find a solution "as if the plans have to be sanctioned on a barren virgin land" and directed a joint meeting of all the agencies concerned for the project.

The project-that involves constructing the parking lot and an underpass connecting it with the court across the road-had faced hurdles since work began in October 2009.

The DUAC had rejected the proposal time and again owing to the presence of an unknown tomb, a Mughal era heritage structure. Moreover, the project proponent had failed to follow the procedure.   

Earlier, the NDMC had slapped a stop-work notice on the construction, despite which work went ahead in full steam.

Said Anant Athle, NDMC's chief architect, "We had asked them to stop work as the proposal had not been cleared by the DUAC."

KT Ravindran, DUAC chairperson, clarified, "There is a particular pro-forma which the local body is supposed to fill. For the meeting held in March, the NDMC submitted a duly signed pro-forma, which signified that it had checked issues related to bye-laws."

"The (status of the) heritage structure was one of the issues. The ASI has been asked to restore the tomb. Then, there were design issues. The project proponents have now complied with all our suggestions. Hence the clearance," Ravindran added.

The project proponents have also been able to garner approvals from every single authority involved, including the Central Vista Committee, Forest department, traffic police and DDA.


Posted by Rajeev Lochan Sharma at 6:50 AM 0 comments

Sunday, March 20, 2011

DTC cracks down on staff for reckless driving

Friday, March 18, 2011




With DTC buses, including the recently introduced low-floor ones, embarking on a 'killing spree', the transport corporation has in the past two weeks sacked nearly 200 of its drivers. Delhi traffic police said as many as 17 people were killed by DTC buses this year till March 15. Last year, five people were crushed to death by these buses during the same period.

The Hindustan Times on February 27 had reported how in the absence of Blueline buses (notoriously known as killerlines), DTC buses have started crushing lives under their wheels.

The increase in the number of fatal accidents involving DTC buses forced the corporation to identify shortcomings in driving abilities among its drivers. Accordingly, Delhi Transport Corporation had initiated a skill test drive for its newly appointed drivers on February 26.

"We have sacked nearly 200 DTC drivers who were appointed on contract. They, despite having valid driving licences, do not have adequate skills to drive on city roads safely," said a senior DTC officer on condition of anonymity.

According to him the harsh step had to be taken to save DTC's image from being tarnished.

The corporation, which was facing acute shortage of drivers, had appointed about 5,000 drivers on contract before Commonwealth Games to run its fleet of 6,400 buses.

Nearly 50% of these are low-floor buses. The appointments, according to DTC officials, were made based on valid driving licences of the drivers and not on their practical experience of driving, said sources.

"We have issued more than thousand challans to DTC drivers till February 15 as compared to only 274 during the same period last year. More than 500 drivers have already been prosecuted for around 1,000 cases of traffic norm violations. They were prosecuted for all kinds of violations, including rash driving, red light jumping, tempering speed governors etc," said Satyendra Garg, joint commissioner of police (traffic).


Posted by Rajeev Lochan Sharma at 12:31 PM 0 comments
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