VDF boys as traffic cops : Imphal Roads Circus
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: September 12 2011 -

It is quite a spectacle to see the boys from the Village Defence Force being put in the middle of the road and made to wave their hands either to tell vehicles to stop or proceed.

The spectacle takes on a comical proportion whenever some VIPs decide to move out from their high security, walled bungalows and zoom around with their sirens and security escorts or when some VVIPs from Delhi decide to pay a visit to Imphal.

This Village Defence Boys are perhaps the latest addition to the plethora of measures taken up by the Government to deal with the growing traffic menace in Imphal city and one can easily visualise a sea of Khakis with waving hands, when the wedding season sets in !

Though no one has formally asked, one may safely guess the reason the Government will furnish for harnessing the service of these boys in traffic control-insufficient manpower.

And so it is that today almost all the major roads of Imphal are adorned with the lathi wielding boys from the VDF, with some of them having graduated to the .303 Rifle and sten carbine.

More man power for controlling the increasing traffic volume in Imphal sounds perfectly alright but is increasing the manpower the only thing that the men responsible for traffic management can think of ?

The answer to this question should be clear from the daily chaos and confusion that one sees on the roads of Imphal and the beautiful part of the mess is the men responsible for managing traffic appear to be caught in the clutch of mediocrity with no ability to think out of the box.

First it needs to be drilled into the heads of all these Babus that traffic management is not sending some boys out there on the roads with a lathi in hand to bark out orders to the motorists but is a science.

This by itself means that the personnel handling the flow of traffic in Imphal need to be trained. And the VDF boys are certainly not trained nor were they recruited to wave their hands to indicate stop or proceed to the motorists.

To arrive at this conclusion we did not need any investigative journalism. Just plain common sense and by this can we infer that the men who decided to put these boys in the middle of the road lack the commonest of the senses in a man ?

Or more likely, it could be a cocktail of lack of common sense and a complete disconnect with the growing chaos on the roads of Imphal, just because it doesn't affect them and their extended family members because this breed come under that class of people to whom the right of way is their “inherited right.”

The question that naturally follows is whether the State has any traffic policy and if yes, then which are the departments responsible for framing them. How often do these different arms of the Government meet ?

A response to this query would be illuminating. However, if the past is any indication, expecting a response from the Government would be a pipe dream. As things stand today, it is not at all clear whether the website of the Manipur Transport Department is functioning or not.

Attempts made by The Sangai Express in the evening of September 12, 2011, to access information from the website proved futile.

Or if it is working, then are the records updated ? These questions are important for the answers will surely reflect on the roads of Imphal and vice vera.

It goes without saying that when there is chaos and confusion in the Government Departments responsible for traffic management, then it is sure to reflect on the decisions taken at the ground level.

Parking allowed here today, not allowed tomorrow; entry allowed now, entry not allowed a few minutes later; parking allowed for some vehicles, not allowed for others; no one way route today, one way route tomorrow etc have reduced traffic norms to nothing but a recital of some incomprehensible rhymes.

It was not so long ago that traffic cops went about exercising their lung power while enforcing traffic rules. The same rules have been tossed for a huge six now.

Why ?

Other than the lethargy and the poverty of ideas crippling the Babus and their political masters, one important factor for the all round traffic chaos that one sees today is nothing but due to the presence of two sets of laws.

One for the VIPs, their extended family members, the cops on their motor bikes, the security personnel and the other for the common people.

That this wouldn't work has been amply demonstrated