Unique initiative, BTP Organised Citizen Forum meeting with Police Commissioner&Other Civic departments officers in Bengaluru

PRAMESH S JAIN

Citizen Engagement is the Mantra of this administration and of this government says Bhaskar Rao Commissioner of Police”.

“The Commissioner of police,Bhaskar Rao and Joint CP,Traffic,DR.BR.Ravikanthe Gowda has urged citizens to send of their problems and suggestions to “acpplanningoffice@gmail.com“.

In its first of its kind Bengaluru City Traffic Police has organised a Citizen forum meeting with all the various departments too were present at the unique event at commissioner’s office in Bengaluru.

The meet was organised to know the problems being faced by general public all the departments representatives were also called to address the Grievances the meeting was presided by Commissioner of Police,Bhaskar Rao,with Joint Commissioner of Traffic,Ravikanthe Gowda explained with power point presentation with DCPs,as,KV Jagadeesh,Dr.SK Soumyalatha,Sarah Fathima with Joint Commissioner of RTO,Jnanendra Kumar with 7 ACPs,as,Gopal Krishna Goudar,Mallikarjun GS,Thimmaiah,Ms.Kavitha,Rangaswamy, Prashanth Siddanagouder,M.Sathish,PIs,as, Dr.AnilKumar,Ms.Meenakshi,Ms.Sowmya,Veeji kumar,Gavisiddappa,Puttamaddaiah, Kishore Bharani,Ms.Hemalatha,Vasanth kumar,Chiddananda Murthy,Ms.Kanakalakshmi,Ms.Shilpa with many other inspectors and staff were present at the unique event as Citizen engagement area traffic planning.

Residents Welfare Associations (RWA) and citizens of across Bengaluru city on Saturday met Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao and representatives of other agencies,like the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP),Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) and the Transport Department, to discuss problems ranging from traffic jams to lack of facilities for pedestrians.

The meet witnessed discussion with frustrated residents citing hour-long jams, bad roads and congestion that make their daily commute to work a nightmare.

A member of the RWA said that as the area is sandwiched between Bellandur and Silk Board,they have to contend with traffic jams and poor air quality.

Many residents said there should be many changes for example U turns should be increased.Bus stops should be shifted from signals and from flyover starting and exit points,Multi parking should be increased.Wilson Garden resident. Comphrensive road hump policy.Traffic police should do road patrolling between 7.30 to 10.30 in the peak hours.Awareness Rallies should be organised in all areas to educate people of following traffic rules and cops should do foot Patrolling,and the Major draw back is potholes said residents.Residnets even said Ambulances should be compulsorily fitted with GPRS.There is no coordination with other civic ammenites and Police should not stand on roads under the tree to catch violators if they start standing in the signal rather standing under the tree it will avoid violations and many will follow traffic and strict action should be taken against those who has created Whatsapp groups to alert the drunkers about the drink and drive check in their areas there should be stringent action to be taken on those so it will be a lesson,Many shared their grievance about street hawkers blocking footpath and roads.One of the resident said Malleswaram roads are very narrow, odd days parking should be done for the free flow of traffic.Kamakshipalya limits has more U-turns concerned authorities should close some u-turns,Tender Sure roads are creating problems it is resulting in traffic jam and in outer ring road KR Puram till silk board is bottleneck, Jeevanbhimangar buses and pickups and drops,Whitefield area meeting should be done regularly with civic ammenites ,abandoned vehicles,Shivajinagar area there is a massive parking problem,The school are not allowing the vehicles inside,School timings should be change in the areas like residency road as many schools starts at the same times and Old airport potholes issues,Sand mud is putted under many underpass which is resulting in vehicles getting skidded and it is resulting in accidents,their should be strict enforcement and even Law and order police should also be there to avoid hooligans who attacks cops a resident said,one of the resident said Toll authorities has no facilities like if any vehicle has been off road or repaired they don’t have towing vehicles to tow away the vehicles.Many said when it rains on the Flyovers water logging will be there many said more Skywalk should be constructed in busy road and Madiwala to St John’s hospital there is a private vehicles menace,Wheeling problem in RT Nagar,HBR layout there is no traffic signals,sand lorries menace,Banaswadi opposite side driving,footpath riding,Metro Stations commercial establishment,Vijayanagar traffic station should be constructed immediately as there is no place if three to four people goes at a time in the station there will be no enough space,and Senior officer to be on public movements,Thippasandra main road is only a narrow road,traffic is getting diverted in residential area,Silk board bottleneck,Rash driving by school drivers,there is no model road,Youngsters wheeling and drag racing,BMTC buses should not park in the entry and exit points,24 hours fine for one offence should be looked into as there should be change as Once he has been fined it is for him to not repeat again but just paying 100 rupees he will be violating the same whole day this should be looked into and they even rised of paying guest (PG) accommodation in the area and unchecked construction activities were also raised with streetlights concerned also was raised.

Police commissioner with all DCPs and various departments officers listened the grievieances of citizens for about two and half hours,of civic problems they are facing with no scope for mercy on drunken drivers and drag races,The citizens of the city have not just requested the Commissioner of Police that for ambulance and emergency vehicles, it is necessary to make a route to drive this vehicles in the left side.

In responsoe to complaints of noise and air pollution,an official from the KSPCB said, We are coming up with measures to control pollution levels in the city.Every vehicle owner must get a Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificate which will help in controlling air pollution in the city.

Jnanendra Kumar,Joint Commissioner of RTO, said many have complained about the noise pollution menace in the city by the motorists for this he said we are conducting a mass enforcement drive across city and whenever we find those bullets or other vehicles with defective silencer fixed in vehicles we are removing it and we will confiscate their vehicle too till they affix or install the recommended silencer given by the company and we are penalising hefty fines against them and we are even destroying the silencers he said and in future we will continue to do it and we will see to it that it will be come to an end and I appeal to all to get done emission check done to control air pollution in the city he added.

BBMP representative said as many residents have said that there is no coordination with each other he said we are coordinating with the traffic cell and then only we are taking up the works and a resident of Cottonpet said about the delay in work in cottonpet main road tender sure work he promised to speed up the work as residents said it is route which connects to Jayanagar Basavanagudi and other areas so they have requested to finish the work soon.There is no caution boards as  barricading is not done in many tender sure work progressing areas he said we will look into it and immediately we will barricade the area and he even said many residents have said to mention about the project completion dates so general public will come to know about when it will get finished so he said we will put boards of project in all tender sure road and we will look into speeding up the work he said.

Commissioner of Police,Bhaskar Rao after hearing the grievieances of citizens of Bengaluru and officers of various departments are present here as there is a holiday also to the officers of various civic ammenites department then also they have come here to address the grievances of general public we have organised this programme based on the instructions of CM of Karnataka who has asked us to hear the grievances of public with all other departments should also be part of the citizen forum meeting and we should see to it that the grievieances are resolved immediately action to be taken.So for this first time we have called this meeting at the same time we have 7 ACPs as Assistant Commissioner of Police,44 Traffic police stations why means bengaluru traffic is Known as international city so to solve the problems it is not only the responsible of traffic police it is all equal to powerful,stress of all stack holders are,BMRCL,BBMP,BDA,Bescom,Pollution Control Board,Railways,Forest,KPID,and others we need everybody’s assistance and what all the grievances you have shared and given to us and if you have registered outside with your email address we will send a response to your complaints through email we will send the action taken on your grievieances all the suggestion that have been taken today and which officer responsibilities it is and the officers who are present here in the meeting we will have one more round meeting to Mull over and think over all the do able suggestions we can do right now. Overnight I cannot promise you anything but definitely we are all decided to move in atleast one directions a correct direction.Next level of meetings for example people are very active in Mahadevapura area,Koramangala whitefield just now Member of Parliament even spoke to me and discussed about his meeting with the stake holders in Bannerghatta road area and many are active in West division also,So our ACPs as this seven officers will go one step lower what we have they will speak to the subordinates of this by telling senior officers have instructed us to do this we will take up this and we will do a duable things very fast the five year six year plan making we will discuss with committee what we can do immediately we will sort out in short term,medium term and long term.So whatever is medium term and long term will be brought to the notice of the government and taken up because we are having large scale infrastructures but for immediately for BDA and Traffic,BBMP and Traffic,BMRCL and traffic police BWSSB and traffic police what all can be done by us we will be doing it regularly.I really appreciate the contribution of Resident welfare associations very enlightening citizens who have taken out their precious time to come all the way till here you have really shown that you are concerned about the city.You have come over here we have 1.06 crore people coming here and I can assure you that all of us together we will atleast go in one direction of hearing as much as possible as my self lot or concerned as per the traffic police is concerned they are handling 44,000 junctions and at the radius of 13,000 kms and it is being taken care only by the 4,000 traffic police personnel we are also writing to the government to increase our personnel like to increase Home Guards,even Resident welfare associations,private security,as well as the Traffic Wardens are doing splendid Job by them as we don’t know how much they have spent and are doing a splendid job I really appreciate their extra ordinary dedication and then in many societies there are some people who are more equal then others they try to use the road both what they want many have said about Hi-End schools about parking in the centre of the road and making traffic jams menace they park outside on the road only as a policy all these buses should be parked inside because it is creating nuisance and trouble for normal road users.In the city like Bengaluru we don’t have parking fees at all once the parking fee policy comes into existence not only BBMP will get lot of revenue but it will bring lot of discipline into people because whenever wherever they start charging parking fee people will automatically change and use public transport how public transport has to be improve BMTC and BMRCL will themselves will separately interacted with you because they have also got a lot of public forum and they also receive lot of suggestions from the public and act accordingly this is a general meeting to see the mood and gourge the feeling of people about main problems individually problems are lot that we will try to solve at the different police station level have patience and the same committee will the main stake holders and definitely we are going to assure you that we are going to make some improvement here I must appreciate Ms.Rama and her team have done in Electronicity they have truly done something on their own using the entire resources in Electronic city as Electronic city is very high disciplined area you will feel that you are in a different place when you go and drive around or you move around, Against Autorickshaw,Ola taxis,you people have said just two days back a very heinous murder case has been detected thanks to our Northeast police who were able to find out the culprit.And we are waited to see that Bengaluru is a safest city it is a becoming a huge international city and small silly problem should not occur and another thing is that welfare associations citizens demands will be addressed to the maximum but the thing is that everybody wants bus but they don’t want bus stop infront of their house,everybody wants garbage disposal but no garbage infront of their house yes we all agree we will try to see till what extent we can convenience we can do ward of citizens co-operation is required I have instructed my officers to deeply involve citizens also as much as possible.As Ravikanthe Gowda was mentioning in his power point presentation also there is facility for you to upload pictures and send suggestions to us please send all this things to us.Chief Secreatery or highest level committee meeting where important decisions are taken we will bring most of things to their notice though madam as said as I have come from Railways there is no important subject was there I have lot of other subjects where we need co-operation of railways specially Sub-Urban railways to ease,I still standby my words as bengaluru has no traffic problems it has got a transportation and mobility issues because day and night,day and night my boys as many have become a victim of chest congestion,eye congestion,suppose if someone of you are stuck in traffic for 3-4 minutes are more time late we make 5-6 class or SMS or we will do whatsapp calls we will be asking where are you where are you to them these people have to stand their and while standing what type of problems they have regards to circulation how many places signal free we are doing and lot of suggestions came that their will be no timers that is a very valid suggestion people should not waste national resources like fuel.Where all timer is not there we will start putting timers the service of signal also we will improve wherever signals are not working we will Realign those signals properly so to see that signals are properly maintained and specially area around BMRCL stations there also we will try to see to improve we will interact with the Chief of the BMRCL also who our esteem colleague Shivakumar who is a retired inspector general of police he said the officer to please turn to the citizens and show your face and show you are an retired police officer so he is an IGP level officer I am sure all the 50-60 stations which are there he will take care and will see to much of those places will be safe as safe as possible and I am trying to rope in the Home Guards also so with these words I thank you very much thanks the members of the media who are in good numbers and have taken up the suggestions many organisations are have come some of them have got lot of brilliant ideas but here only asked for suggestions as 1,2,3,4 and this issues are not only government to deal with we need the support of the enlightening citizens like you have travelled all over the world and seen we want to implicate as much as possible but most important is discipline ourselves I am myself very troubled I have told my DCPs today morning also that whatever I see people coming in hurry specially about school buses many have told but nobody told me they bring their children’s in No-Entry and one of the biggest challenges that we are facing that parent’s concerns.They pick up infront of their house and they again drop in front of your house only here not only traffic related I have seen young girls 15-16 years old girls is also sent in one bus only the bus will be fully crowded they will be falling on each other as citizens you also should protest I will bring the notice to transport commissioner we will discuss further as  our Jnanendra Kumar was my RTO officers in rajajinagar we started a initiative we ran into problem parents were like what problem you have they questioned us what problem you have as we see many Gas-cylinder based omni can they pick up and drop school students road safety all powerful voice there also and stop and bring it to our notice.We are always there to empower citizens who are there to support us about the wheelies concerns we will not spare anyone and without any hesitation we will take stringent action but it has been a addiction like for some people and it is a sport and I am seriously contemplating to give them a special special place I m a seriously contemplating to give them a special place they can but of course that is a policy issue they dont have rights to endanger others life somebody said about many drive in Zig-Zag snake driving all this have come come to know and each and every suggestions of citizens will be address.Citizen engagement is the Mantra of this administration and of this government we will take all suggestions from all the ways and try to demand service from us but don’t become so harsh to us he added.