NEW DELHI: What inspired Kishore Kumar to sing Jaana Tha Japan Pahunch Gaye Chin? We will never know. But had he been alive and kicking to find his way in the roads of the national capital today, he would have perhaps penned the same lines for the faulty road signage here.
While driving towards the domestic airport in the capital, if you end up reaching Delhi Cantonment, don’t blame yourself. You are not alone who looks for an U-turn while giving a mouthful to faulty signage put up across Delhi. But, a BJP Member of Parliament from Maharashtra, Dilip Gandhi, has come to rescue. He was incensed by the plight of the people coming from outside who, thanks to the faulty road signages, had a hard time finding their way in the capital.
Maybe the city government found its way after it received a written complaint from the Lok Sabha member regarding the same. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was only too quick to make way. He promised 30,000 signboards across the capital with an allotment of nearly `30 crore per year. The government is now busy preparing a draft of standard policy for road signage and signboards. Ironically, the Delhi government had installed new signboards in last two years but now they all will be standardised and corrected after Gandhi’s intervention.
If you are worried that the road signage leading to your colony is a bit confusing, be thankful that you have something common with the elite group of people living in Lutyens’ Delhi. The posh locality which houses all the ministries and over 790 parliamentarians too have road signs that will require nothing short of rocket or radar science to find your way. In a missive to Delhi’s Public Works Department, Gandhi wrote, “I would like to highlight your department to take up on priority the issues (improvement of signages and directions) which are of public importance and day to day problems being faced by common public.” He stated that absences of proper signages can result in “severe accidents and loss of life”. “Sometimes accident taking place in Delhi because of such minor lapses,” he said, asking the PWD to urgently install signboards on the route to the domestic airport from Mahipalpur.
“While going towards domestic airport after taking a right turn from Mahipalpur, there is no signage at the beginning of the bifurcation of two roads leading to Dwarka underpass and other going towards domestic airport,” he noted. He further pointed out that most of the time since there is no signage the passengers going towards airport enter into wrong Dwarka underpass and end up reaching Delhi Cantonment.
He requested the PWD to undertake a route survey to identify the locations where signboards are to be provided.
Taking note of Gandhi’s letter, PWD Chief Engineer Mukund Joshi has directed all officials concerned to study and install standalone post of 5.5-metre height at central verge or standalone post of two-metre height on footpath at suitable locations depicting various localities and colonies rather than names of roads, institutions or markets. “There is no standard signage policy for the city so far. As the city evolved, so the signboards across the city. We also do not have complication of numbers of signages installed,” Joshi told The Sunday Standard.