Neeraj Bagga Amritsar, July 9 The surface infrastructure of the city is being upgraded by spending thousands of crores of rupees under the Smart City project but its roads are without slip road markings. Slip roads are a major component of the surface infrastructure to provide easy access to vehicles so that they may take turn on the roads without waiting for green traffic signal ahead. Balram Kumar Sharma, president of Punjab Sudhar Sabha, an NGO, says several attempts have been made by the authorities to recreate slip roads by installing plastic cones, but these are trampled by fast moving wheels.” Harried commuters have to wait unnecessarily at the intersections for the rush of vehicles to clear with the green light signal ahead. Most of the slip roads are either missing or encroached upon. “Many studies have pointed out high pollution in the state. The automobile pollution is said to be a major contributor to pollution,” he says. A city resident, Naresh Johar, said, the main objective of traffic management is to make roads safer and offer trouble free movement to commuters.“Of the entire gamut of surface infrastructure, slip roads play a significant role. Slip roads allow commuters to turn left when traffic lights are red for straight journey. It helps cutting down on the vehicle build-up and unnecessary consumption of fuel, thereby cutting emission of pollution,” he stressed. At a time, when the city traffic crawls, the absence of slip roads at major crossings has aggravated the problem. Though various government agencies want commuters to abide by the traffic rules, they do little to solve the crisis, say residents. Johar stressed that most of the places where slip roads have been marked, are either encroached upon or in a pathetic condition. As per the surface transport rules, all four directions of a road must ideally have four concrete structures of about two feet high to distinguish between the slip roads from the main road. At many crossings in the city, an intersection has two or one divider earmarking the slip road and the remaining have been demolished. Residents mention the case of Novelty Chowk on the Mall road where only one side has a concrete high rise pedestal for slip road while the rest have vanished. The solitary slip road is well maintained and free of encroachment as there is no commercial activity as Company Bagh falls along it. Consequently, the traffic coming from SSSS Chownk heading to Madan Mohan Malviya road never sees rush of traffic. The remaining three directions have commercial outlets and slip roads are no longer visible. Maha Singh Gate has only three slip roads. All of them are in a pitiable condition. Similarly, the busy Puttalighar Chowk crossing is one of the fortunate intersections where slip roads are in place. However, all these are in poor condition and majority of these are victims of encroachment. When contacted, an official of the Municipal Corporation, requesting not to be named, said continuous campaigns to remove encroachments had been under way. In addition, wherever possible, slip roads are being constructed or marked to efficiently regulate the traffic.

Stay updated with all the Amritsar Latest News headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.