BENGALURU: Thanks to the Citizens’ Traffic Forum meets and WhatsApp groups, Bengaluru Traffic Police receives grievances and information on traffic-related problems and helps redress them.
Forum meets are held in all 43 traffic police stations across the city every third Saturday. The forum has been meeting regularly for four years now.
In East division, around eight citizen groups are active on WhatsApp, with the Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) C K Baba on them. People share problems relating to violations and give suggestions as well.
“We no longer have to wait for the third Saturday to hear from people. Residents of different areas keep us updated about everything from wrong parking to major issues,” Baba said.
Following suggestions made at the meets, traffic police recently made changes in Sadashivanangar to ease congestion.
Requests to move bus stops and making roads one-ways, and reports on parking violations and heavy vehicles movement during peak hours are common.
Civic complaints Traffic police say they have become the go-to officials to lodge complaints about civic agencies as well. “It is easier for most people to come to the traffic police station than find a BBMP zonal engineer or ask a BWSSB official to fix problems,” a senior traffic police official said. “We do not discourage such complaints.”
Sometimes the traffic police ask the local officials of other agencies to be part of the meetings. “Or we write to those agencies, informing them of the problem. Progress on is reviewed at the next meeting.”
People also complain about others parking in front of their house, traffic passing by the house or noise levels at night. “We cannot solve problems like these, motivated by selfish reasons,” another official said.
Problems involving other agencies can’t always be solved, said Additional Com missioner of Police (Traffic) M A Saleem. “But initiatives like this, have helped us tap into information, sometimes ease congestion.”