Police Commissioner Took Lessons
City Police Commissioner K.C. Mahali explains a model road that can reduce accidents at an interface with Coimbatore Corporation councillors on Friday. City Police Commissioner K.C. Mahali turned into a teacher at an interface with the Coimbatore Corporation councillors on road safety here on Friday. He drew a model road on a black board and explained how it could prevent accidents. But, the target audience did not quite respond to the expected level, despite the official who hailed from Orissa managing to speak in Tamil to strike a chord with the councillors. Instead of even getting to know how they could team up with the police in making the city roads accident-free, the councillors converted the interface into a grievances redress session. Each of the councillors who spoke went only to the extent of highlighting the traffic bottlenecks and violations in their wards and seeking a solution from the police. Not even at one instance did they ask for a road map for a joint approach.
One of the councillors agreed that his colleagues were not able to get out of the “Zero Hour” mode in the Council. It was more like a grievances meeting or like the routine pouring out of grievances at a Council meeting, he said. Though this was the second interface on this subject, the councillors seemed hardly forthcoming on working out a joint strategy with the police. It took a Deputy Commissioner to point out while proposing a vote of thanks what was expected of the councillors. Mr. Mahali had presented slides on road engineering, cables hanging across roads and other impediments to smooth traffic.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) councillor M. Kanagamani said many agencies, such as the electricity board and telephone services providers, were involved in putting up various structures along roads. So, involving the Corporation alone would not be sufficient. The Commissioner said he was willing to take up the issue of road safety with other agencies also. But, he also asked: “How are the councillors going to help us?” There was not clear response to this throughout the interaction the councillors had with the police. Very few councillors came close to responding properly with suggestions such as keeping mofussil buses and heavy vehicles out of the city and taking stringent action against the owners of stray cattle that caused accidents.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam member P. Rajkumar said all kinds of cattle, horses and pigs were on the city roads. Leader of the Opposition V.N. Udayakumar called upon the police to register nuisance case against the owners. When the accident-causing condition of Tiruchi Road was raised, Corporation Works Committee Chairman R. Ramaswamy said the highways had drawn up a project to re-lay a 12-km damaged stretch at Rs.60 crore. Mr. Mahali responded by asking: “When will it be implemented? I have been hearing this for the last eight months.”
