Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, August 25: While the state capital has been witnessing a steady growth in the number of motorised vehicles on its streets, at least 10 traffic posts in the city are lying unmanned.
A scarcity of staff to run the traffic posts has led to a perennially chaotic situation at some of these unmanned junctions. Sources said at least 15 more traffic posts were added in the city, whose population is about a million, in the last two years to the 57 set up earlier, but the department witnessed a sharp decline of officials within the same period.
Traffic posts in areas like Airfield, Infocity, Dhauli, etc are lying unmanned. “To set up a traffic post, at least `30,000 is required. In the last two years, at least 15 new traffic posts were set up for which about `4,50,000 was spent,” said a sources in the city police.
“Earlier, there were 197 constables working in the traffic department of the commissionerate police, but now there are 140 constables. While there were 24 havildars earlier, now there are only 17. These personnel are the ones who manage traffic on city roads,” the source added.
Bhubaneswar ACP (traffic) Jatindra Kumar Panda admitted that nearly 15 traffic posts are lying unmanned in the city since there were no new recruitments while the retirement of working officials continued.
“There is an acute shortage of staff for which many traffic posts in the city are lying unmanned,” he said.
The traffic ACP also informed this newspaper that the department will provide masks to its officials very soon to protect themselves from the pollution of dust and smoke during their duty hours at busy junctions in the city.
