Restrict the number of vehicles during a wedding :: Traffic snarls : Annual affair
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: November 24 2015 -

It is an annual affair. An annual affair which is a pain in the neck.

The downside to the marriage or wedding season. The massive traffic jam.

Everyone talks about it, complains about it, but does nothing about it.

This is the marriage season, at least for the major community of the State, the Meiteis and to be sure all the major roads in Imphal are choc-a-bloc with slow moving vehicles, causing massive traffic jams all over.

Not that there are no traffic jams at other times of the year, but one just has to experience the traffic jams caused by a wedding party to realise the point that is sought to be made here.

With the country opening up her economy from the 1990s and with new automobile companies queuing up to set up shop in the country, the number of vehicles, especially cars has multiplied.

With financial institutions more than ready to advance loans for vehicle purchase, there has been a corresponding rise in the number of vehicle owners too.

So from the days when the number of families owning a car or a jeep in a locality could be counted on one’s finger tips, the reverse is true today.

This has had a direct impact on how weddings are held and while it was an accepted thing to count the number of vehicles during a marriage function decades back, this is no longer the case today.

The number of vehicles on a wedding day is today no longer a status statement, but has become something like a requirement.

This is where people need to seriously question themselves whether the number of vehicles at a single wedding is really needed or not.

Why don’t the people come to the point that what matters is their presence and not taking their vehicles to the wedding ?

Why not opt to go together in a bus or any other vehicle that can carry them together.

The concept of car pooling is yet to catch on, but at least during a wedding procession why don’t people pool in their cars and go together ?

Maybe it would be also be in the fitness of things for the Government to consider drafting a Bill that seeks to put a cap on the number of vehicles during a wedding ceremony.

There may be some resistance to such a measure initially, and this is where the Government may need to launch a sensitisation drive to convince the people of the need to not only save fuel by cutting down on the number of vehicles but also encouraging the people to pool in their vehicles.

Who knows, this may well work out as the precursor of car pool system that is in vogue in some of the major cities around the world.

There has to be a way out and the people should look forward to ways on how to minimise traffic snarl, that is primarily caused by the huge number of vehicles on the road.

And of course it will also help, if everyone, including those who travel with beacon lights come to the realisation that traffic rules are to be obeyed by everyone.