Ghaziabad: Pradeep Gupta, a resident of Shalimar Garden, decided to take a traffic inspector for a ride around his neighbourhood in his SUV on Tuesday. He wanted inspector JS Pathak to see the unruly e-rickshaws that block the main roads, encroachments on the main carriageway and give him a taste of the traffic congestion that affects their daily lives.They drove from the Shalimar Garden police station to the power station. They went around Chandrashekhar Azad Park, then took the stretch from Shiv Chowk to the ESI Hospital and ended the drive in the Punjabi Dhaba area. The cop was in the car with Gupta for more than two hours.Shalimar Garden is a relatively new residential locality that began taking shape in the late 1960s, when small labour settlements emerged due to growing industrial units of the Sahibabad industrial area and its proximity to the country’s capital. Most of the construction in the area is low-rise builder apartments where the ground floors are dedicated to shops and the higher floors are residences.The shops on the lower floors of the buildings lining the main road gave way to footpath stalls and hawkers. Push carts, squatters and encroachers block every bit of the footpaths on these stretches. Some of the footpath stalls even spilled onto the main carriageway, reducing the 80-foot road to 50 feet or even less.Pathak noted congestion near Punjabi Dhaba, Vardhman Nursing Home and Rajesh Pilot Chowk, as well as high traffic volume and disorderly vehicle movement at Bharat Mata Chowk. He acknowledged the need for effective traffic management at Mangal Pandey Chowk.Gupta pointed out the traffic around the DAV School, leading to chaos at the locality’s entry point from the 150-foot-wide Wazirabad road. Disorganised parking and operations of e-rickshaws here add to the mess.The officer was told about the traffic disruptions during local markets held on Fridays, Wednesdays and Sundays. “The lack of enforcement at these choke points leaves us in a pickle. Our patience has worn out,” Gupta told TOI. “It’s high time that the traffic police take accountability.”Another resident of the locality, Madan Mohan, said the issue of encroachment on footpaths near schools and hospitals has left no space for pedestrians. “Moreover, we need urgent redress from the e-rickshaw menace. They ply haphazardly and stop in the middle of the road to drop and pick up passengers,” he said.Inspector Pathak said his department is committed to implementing measures to improve traffic management in the area. For immediate redress, he announced plans to deploy personnel at critical entry points to facilitate smoother movement.
