‘Talks’ about smart city, of which Imphal is among the 100 selected from across the country to implement the project, is becoming a real issue for almost everyone of us. According to the guidelines Imphal Municipal Corporation (IMC) has been entrusted for the dream project. The concept of “smart city” as mentioned earlier in this column is about making the people smart by providing smart requirement for all like – providing 24 hour potable water, dwelling for all, electricity for all, roads for all etc. etc.
One more important concept of smart city is to make the people smart which can be literally translated as making the people more civilize by improving their civic sense. When we talk about improving civic sense of the citizens there are certain areas that has to be associated with the functioning of government machineries. For example, the aggressive attitudes of so call bureaucrats who are running the state need to be changed first. The law enforcers – ‘police’ should be people-friendly and should be smart enough to tackle situations giving top priority to protection of the common people. The government employees at the government offices need to be checked by their concern head of department about the way that they are dealing with the common people. Schools, colleges and Universities need to be improved and not the least the present traffic management system need to be properly streamlined.
Beauty of a house is often judged by the way that the owner arranges the contents inside the house in an organized manner. The way the owner plant trees, manage garden and arrange his living room shows the standard of the person. Likewise, it is the way that a person dressed and combed his or her hair that people judged him as a respectable person. (Mahatama Gandhi’s story is different as he was protesting the British colonialism attitude).
Point being here is to let those who are working hard for converting into a smart city realize about the need for proper traffic management. According to feedback received by this newspaper, people are of the opinion that both the people driving smart vehicles as well as the traffic police are both to be blamed for the present chaos in Imphal area particularly at Paona Keithel and Thangal Keithel.
It is not that the parking area should not be allotted in this small stretch of road, but it is about the way that the smart vehicles drivers park their vehicles in these road stretches.
May be due to the lack of proper man power with the traffic police, many private security personnel ,both men and women are seen on duty managing parking for vehicles at many places both at Thangal and Paona keithel. Besides these private securities mainly assigned (on contract basis) for parking management, few policemen and women are also seen at certain check area.
To be precise, the men and women hired for parking management seem to be powerless, or rather clueless to properly arrange parking for all the vehicles. Many vehicles are seen parked beyond the allotted parking area creating lots of difficulties for commuters. This is perhaps because private security personnel are sometime helpless as they are not authorised even to take any action against them. On the other hand the police men and women too never bother to rectify the way vehicles are parked at their wishes.
Traffic police are sometime seen with loud speakers to check this kind of unorganized parking but only at the time when some VVIP are to pass the route.
Well it is not only the Traffic police that are responsible for the traffic chaos, but the whole department that are members of the TRPC (Traffic Regulations and Parking Committee). PWD, Transport, Police etc. are all members of the committee. They are directed to at least have a sitting once in month to review about the failure in the traffic management.
The dream about smart city is likely to be sabotaged by the failed traffic mismanagement in the Imphal area. It is time now those responsible officers need to be sincere and proactive in tackling this issue.
