Nagaland’s narrow roads coupled with increase in vehicle population by the day, ‘No Parking’ notice put up everywhere and anywhere is aggravating the congestion problem further. The question is can anybody put up ‘No Parking’ notices? Shops and House owners whose buildings are adjacent to the main roads in the towns have put up such notices. Some Shop owners even put up ‘Parking only for customers’. I suppose these are all illegal because the roads belong to the public and not the shop or house owners. The only authority that may notify an area as No Parking Zone notice can come only from the Administration or the Traffic Police. Concern authority may kindly streamline this menace urgently in public interest.
While talking about traffic congestion, the tireless effort of the traffic police to keep the traffic going must be admired. Dealing with drivers, some of who are senseless and arrogant, including Government vehicles and Ministers who are seen always in a hurry to overtake others at the usual traffic jam day-in and day-out in the sun, rain and dust is not a matter of joke. The other nuisance which is adding to traffic peril is parking of vehicles haphazardly. It has been aptly twitted by someone who said that our two lane roads are forcibly converted into five/six lane roads bringing traffic to a stand-still causing inordinate delay. The amazing question is while the traffic is in a jam the VIP vehicles can overcome the jam in few minutes. This means to say that there is something wrong in the flow of the traffic that needs to be examined and rectified. In this regard, we may emulate the example of Shillong where no stoppage is given anywhere and everywhere as we do here in our cities and towns.
Traffic population will continue to escalate and the only way to prevent a total halt from traffic jam in our cities is to bring in stricter traffic regulatory system even to the extent of an on the spot penalty on defaulters and continuous innovation of ideas in order to help our cities and towns moving.
Jonas Yanthan
