Marriage of CM's son & traffic regulation
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: November 16, 2013 -

One cannot deny the fact that traffic congestion on the roads in and around Imphal city has increased tremendously in the past few years, thus, leading to long traffic jams, which would have been unimaginable a couple of decades back.

While the increasing traffic congestion has been normally associated with increased in the number of private and public transport vehicles plying on the roads, we, however, feels, that poor traffic management is another factor which leads to frequent snarl on the congested roads of the city.

Of course, we could also not ignore the narrowness of the roads in and around the city, which has remained as they are, in spite of the increasing traffic volume (not just in terms of year, but every day), for the problem one has to face on the roads crisscrossing the twin district capital city.

Adding to the chaos is the mentality of the commuters who have complete disregard for obeying traffic rules once they step out of the homes, thus, causing a recurring nightmare to the traffic police on duty.

In order to solve the problem of the ever increasing traffic congestion, the government may be introducing new traffic norms from times to times mostly on trial basis to see if they can solve the problem and ease the increasing traffic congestion. As a consequence, commuters who frequent Imphal city often face lots of confusion on the roads of Imphal.

In other words, frequent changes in traffic norms and parking spaces of passenger vehicles simply add chaos and confusion to those who frequent the Imphal city.

However, the problem that was created to the commuters, specially along the Uripok side on Friday, (despite being a bandh day called in protest against the killing of Vice President of MPP Haobijam Manisana) has given a whole new meaning to the problem of traffic congestion and ill-management of traffic on the roads of Imphal city and its resultant problem imposed on the poor commuters, to a whole new greater height.

Poor public could not help but be wondered, how the Traffic Department and its personnel could come up with new traffic rule and arrangement out of the blue just because the only son of the Chief Minister of the State was getting married and the marriage party was on its way to Uripok for solemnization of the nuptial ceremony?

Was there any prior official notification or order for route diversification of the passenger auto-rickshaw vehicles coming towards Uripok road carrying office goers after their hard day’s work or market goers after making their purchases?

And, what is the logic behind letting those coming or driving cars to pass through the ‘traffic regulated areas’ while forcing the auto-rickshaws carrying the poor commuters to take a circuitous route?

This, we feel, is nothing but discrimination of the poor and deprivation of the deprived.