KOLKATA: The city police has dispatched several senior officers, primarily from its non-investigating cadre, to man the clogged streets of Behala . This, the cops believe, will help improve traffic by making the decision-making process faster.The senior officers have been asked to help navigate traffic through the multiple feeder roads.In addition to the transfers — which include inspectors and assistant commissioners (ACP) — all officersin-charge (OC) and additional OCs of 13 police stations in and around Diamond Harbour Road, covering Kolkata Police’s South, South-West and Port divisions have been asked to man all important crossings under their jurisdiction from 8am to 11am and again from 6pm to 8pm to manage the rush hours. The transferred senior cops have also been asked to man important Behala crossings at the same timings.The decision to ask senior cops to take over traffic came after Kolkata Police was finding it extremely tough to expedite the huge traffic load that uses this corridor for north-south movement, in the aftermath of the Majerhat bridge collapse on September 4. As an interim measure, the police had drafted officers and personnel drawn from all traffic guards across the city to Behala. However, this couldn’t be a long-term measure, for this could create pressure on other key intersections in the city, sources said.The new orders seek to bring in senior officers for long-term deployment in this zone. All these officers have prior traffic experience.Successive orders issued by commissioner Rajeev Kumar on Tuesday sought to transfer ACP-ranked officers from the special branch, Kolkata Armed Police battalions and even the elite COMBAT force to traffic police. Likewise, the inspectors drafted were from the security control office, RAF, COMBAT, reserve and headquarter forces. “This is an interim measure. The deputation orders issued are to be implemented with immediate effect. Only non-investigation cadre officers have been hand-picked for this,” said a senior officer.“Police deployment in Behala is now an exigency,” said a senior officer. “We believe the bottlenecks will ease once the few approach roads parallel to the Majherhat bridge is operational.” The Majherhat bridge was a “24-hour bridge”, catering to goods and commuter traffic. “If the north-south approach roads are operational at least for vehicular traffic before the festival crowds hit the street, we can get some relief,” said a source.

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