Traffic and road condition in Pune

If you will travel from one side of the city to other side in Pune only then you will be able to understand the meaning of this frustration in this article. Some of the problems which commuters face daily on roads are:-
1. Bad Road condition with huge pot holes
2. Terrific driving sense of people.
3. Trafic police is always busy in collecting challans then doing there actual duty of contolling traffic and that too in the absence of inspector.
4. PMT buses don’t follow the lanes and keep changing there lanes even in heavy traffic.
5. Two wheeler drivers can overtake you from anyside anytime, so be ready for that.
6. People don’t have patience to stop at red light or at any chowk to let other cross which ends in deadlock of traffic jam.(You can find this very often)
7. Roads are blocked and diverted for bridges and for other work from past more that 2.5 years.
PMC (Pune Municipal Corporation) project them as most innocent and efficient working force in this country. But the truth is known to all local people. I will explain you this with example. Just Before last monsoon many of the road patches up work projects are distributed and PMC had given most of its projects to a single contractor. But then he fails to complete his work and whatever roads he had repaired it washed out in very first rain. But then one more drama starts from mayor of pune. She had given the statement that if roads are not repaired in 4 days then she will resign. And after 4 days she told media that all roads are repaired and she is now taking her statement back. This whole patch up work was of cost somewhere around Rs. 22-25 crores. But if you got the chance to see some roads there no work was done and if work was completed then it was of very bad quality.
Now after monsoons are over PMC had called the tenders for new Patch up work and again that tender is given to same contractor. And when media pressurize PMC officials then they told media that they have given the contract on the basis of lowest bid.
My question to them is Does the lowest bid is the only factor to consider the contractor?
And can’t they blacklist the contractor for any future project if he didn’t work as per there schedule and quality work.

In city of Pune 70% of traffic jams are because of diversions and bad road conditions but PMC least bother about that and they keep filling their pockets from the under table money given by contractors.
Now just before municipal elections PMC has done some surveys for better transportation system in city like Metro, bus transit system, Trams, SkyBus etc. And they have spent more than 10 crores just for getting the proposals from various companies. And they have cleared some projects also to make a better vote bank from local people.
I can’t figure out when the bridges in pune are going to complete. They started around three years back just after when I shifted to pune and they are still ON and there is no official end date for them. They are aking condition even worst.

I have never seen a traffic police challaning a PMT bus for violating the traffic rule. Its feel like they have official right to break rule as they are govt. servant. These kinds of actions have to be taken to provide better traffic conditions.

People are also equally responsible for this bad situations on roads especially two wheelers riders. They change the lanes, overtake from wrong side and take turns without any indications etc. So we also have to follow traffic rules to give a better city.

If govt. thinks of proving better transportation system then no. of vehicles will surely decrease and road conditions will be better in the future. And I think if govt. will not take any immediate action on this then its too late for them to improve bad condition in city of Pune.

Traffic Police wala’s

I am talking about the traffic police which keep there eyes just on two wheelers to grab money from them in a city like Pune where most popular mode of transport is 2-wheeler. Nobody in this city had ever found a police man stopping a car or PMT bus for breaking the traffic rules or to show them the documents of their vehicle. But you can see a gang of traffic police stopping only two wheelers and collecting money from them. If your vehicle is not registered in Maharashtra then you are being teased by them. There is rule by Maharashtra high court that you have to transfer your registration to Maharashtra if you want to drive it in state. But most of the people and traffic police don’t know or they show them innocent about this rule directed by high court in sept’03 that “Non-state vehicles can’t be taxed”. This rule says that vehicle registered outside but used in state for more that 12 months should transfer their registration to Maharashtra. The transport authorities can’t demand the one-time tax payment before that.

I can share one of many incident happened with me regarding this. Once in the morning I was riding my bike to office and I stopped on a traffic signal. One police man came to me and asked for papers of bike. I showed him everything, then he asked for pollution certificate and I produce that also. They that guy asked for NOC and said you cannot ride out of state vehicle here. But I tried to convince him about the rule but he least bother about what I was talking about and take my license and ask me to come on one side of the road. I argue with him about this high court rule but he said there is no rule of such kind and unfortunately I was not carrying that newspaper cutting with me. So he told me to get that and show him if there any rule of that kind exist. I told him that I was getting late for office but he didn’t listen to me and start doing his job. And went back home and get all the needed documents and produce them to that traffic police guy. He then said “OK, you can go now”. Now my question is why I was being teased by him, its his job to update himself from all the rules directed by court related to his job. But nobody is answerable for this.

My other concern is why don’t there traffic police guys stop the PMT buses for breaking rules and jumping red lights and not following the heavy vehicle lane on road? These buses are most responsible for accident happens in city of Pune. They stop wherever they find any passenger. In city like Delhi, Bombay and Chandigarh buses and equally being “challan” for breaking traffic rule.

In city like Pune you can easily find a tempo picking two wheelers from parking lot and says it is no parking place. They claim that was outside the white line marking done by police for parking place on roadsides. But actually these lines are absolutely not visible at most of the places. And sometimes they even don’t mark it clearly that your vehicle is seized by traffic police and which police station to approach.

One more thing that I had observed in market place that shopkeepers had put a iron or wooden grill to connect to the main road so that customers can approach his shop. You can find such kind of grills on FC road, JM Road. But this is illegal; no shopkeeper is authorized to put anything on road to block the place of parking. If police remove these then 30-40 more vehicles can be parked on the road side on this famous market place.

I believe these traffic police guys are not doing there duty properly and they are just filling there pockets by teasing the student and working people using two wheeler for their transportation. Most of the people even don’t know even this that a traffic police also need an authority letter to check your license and other papers. And one inspector rank office must present there during this process of stopping vehicle and asking for any document by any “havaldaar”. And no traffic police have any kind of right to argue with you or to abuse you. He can maximum put your license/RC with him or can seize your vehicle if you don’t produce it. He cannot touch you or use any kind of ill language with you. If he is doing this or even more then you have right to file complaint against him. My suggestion to traffic police is that please concentrate on your job and not just collecting money. And also please consider all type of vehicles on road who are breaking traffic rules and not just two wheelers. I think people are also equally responsible for this behavior of them because they don’t know about their rights and they are not aware of what is right and what is wrong.