Bengaluru rains brings cheer to many Intense pour leads to waterlogging and traffic jams and doubled the work of Traffic police in Bengaluru

Pramesh S Jain & Yogesh K Porwar 

T

he arrival of rains in the city brought relief from the scorching heat but had doubled the work of traffic policemen since Monday.

Two policemen attached to RT Nagar traffic escaped with minor injuries while clearing the uprooted tree during the rain when desperate motorcycle riders knocked them down in a bid to pass through the blocked roads on Wednesday.

All major roads flyovers and underpass across the city flooded .

The Hennur flyover flooded with knee deep water making worst for the motorists to cross on Wednesday.

This is majorly due to clogged drainage and felling of roadside trees due to road widening projects which weakened the roots.

Though it is not part of traffic police job to clear the clogged drains and clearing uprooted trees,the police had to do it to ensure smooth flow of the traffic .

We make sure that traffic is cleared on the road and normal before sighing off,no matter how long it will take senior officer,added.

We are not trained to this job,but we have to do it to ensure free flow of traffic and ensure no traffic jams on the road”, a officer who was clearing the tree fell on the busy RT Nagar road,said .

After repeated attempts to call the civic agency officials concerned, the traffic police had to rope in a JCB to clear the tree .

The traffic police personnel were also equipped with basic tools to clear the obstacles.We used lathis to clear the clogged drains and plastic tubs to fill the potholes,a officer,added.

Though there was no standing instructions to take up the cleaning work,traffic police personnel take up the work to make free flow of traffic on the roads where they were deployed.

Though there is a disaster management cell to look after this issues,there were hardly no response and road users have high expectations from the traffic police in emergency situations like this .

According to the traffic police advisory,water logging has been reported at more than 90 locations and tree fall at 120 locations across the city since Monday.

The traffic policemen are working extra hours to ensure safety of road users , a senior police officer monitoring traffic control room, said .