By Eleanor Mikkimchi Sangma | TURA
In her book, Dark Age Ahead, famous urban studies expert and activist Jane Jacobs wrote, “Not TV or illegal drugs but the automobile has been the chief destroyer of American communities”. The same can be said of Meghalaya, where all development centres on the automobile, making “traffic” a singularly terrifying ordeal for private establishments, public citizens and the police. In this article, Eleanor Mikkimchi Sangma writes on how Tura is on this well-trodden path of development that seeks to build a city for car owners.
“We have recently tried to initiate the separation of law and order and investigation wings on a pilot basis in Tura”, says Vivekanand Singh Rathore, Superintendent of Police, West Garo Hills. The Supreme Court had suggested that there must be two separate wings for the two units in 2006. However, due to the requirement of excess manpower, it had not been carried out in Garo Hills till now.
Officers have now been designated to the law and order wing as well as the investigation wing. Officers in the former unit are strictly used for duties such as rallies, protests, demonstrations and carrying out basic inquiries when a case has been reported. The investigation wing only investigates cases to hasten the process, allowing the officer to concentrate on quality investigation rather than wasting valuable time running pillar to post for other tasks.
The traffic branch also has separate wings for law and order and investigation. Officers who are in the law and order wing are associated mostly with day-to-day regulation of duties. In case of an accident, the emergency response falls primarily under their jurisdiction. Once the case is registered, the other unit takes over. “The investigation wing will carry out the investigation to the best of their abilities, while the miscellaneous tasks will be taken care of by the law and order wing, so the work is balanced”, explains the officer.
The manpower strength of the traffic branch has also been increased as traffic challenges become more complex in Tura. “Though the sanctioned posts are still the same, I have used my powers to reinforce the unit”, he says. Earlier, the branch was operating with around 30 personnel, which has now increased to around 75 personnel to oversee most junctions in town.
“So, if one constable is standing on almost every main junction, that, of course, will help in traffic regulation. They see a police constable standing on the road, which also creates a sort of deterrence”.
He added that the separation of the two mentioned wings has been initiated with these objectives in mind. After a period of six months, there will be a review and discussion, after which a further course of action will be decided.
However, so far, civilians have divisive opinions on traffic regulation in the district.
“When I applied for my driver’s licence last year, it took me months to get the work done”, says B.Ed. student Ame Momin. Because she has to wait for her classes to finish, officers would have left by the time she reached the office. Even on days, she would leave class early, the congested streets in town made it impossible for her to reach any place on time.
She feels the situation has not changed much since last year. It, in fact, seems to have become worse.
Since school reopened, Momin has been in charge of dropping her niece at Embee Rosebud Secondary school. She says she often has to take someone else with her. Her companion has to leave her niece at the gate because she can never find a parking spot. “If I go alone, there is no way my niece will reach school on time”, she claims. Searching for a parking space would lead them away from the school instead of towards it. She also claims that she cannot stop the car even for a few minutes just to let her niece get down for fear that this brief pause will create an even worse jam and attract the ire of angry car owners.
“I’ve observed that some traffic police are capable of managing traffic flow perfectly well even if there is a lot of cars, while some other will make it worse even with fewer cars”, she adds. Last year, due to COVID-19 restrictions, there were fewer classes which meant less traffic. Briana N Sangma, who has to drop one cousin to Casarina Public School and another at Don Bosco College, feels it has gotten worse since classes restarted.
“It’s been a feat trying to get my cousins to get to their classes on time because their classes start around the same time while their institutions are on the opposite sides of the town”, she says. She claims that sometimes they need two vehicles along with an extra person to drive the kids.
She echoes the sentiment that the congestion has been worse this year compared with the previous year. She says it is rather difficult to reach places and get much work done because of the same. “It might be because most of the institutions and workplaces have opened again”, she adds, referring to the easing of lockdowns in the state as the pandemic subsides.
Dipse Sangma, a resident of Araimile, is of a different opinion. She feels the traffic flow has become better this year. “I stay here so I know how bad it used to be. We had a hard time even crossing the road back then”, she claims. In fact, she believes the difference is quite stark in how traffic is managed in the town.
Sangma has to travel from home to Hawakhana for work. “It is a very short stretch of road and should take about 10 minutes to reach. But last year, it used to take me half an hour each time due to congestion”, she says. She often had to go out of her way in order to not be late. Now, it takes very little time for her to cover the same distance.
While some people feel that congestion on Tura roads has eased out, others are of the opinion it has either become worse or remains the same.
Besides traffic regulations, the Meghalaya Police have been working on improving other aspects. Police modernisation is underway, which has seen the development of an in-house application to manage case records. “This is so that there is complete transparency and availability of data with every officer,” Rathore says. Stating that things are comparatively peaceful in the district since Garo Hills has overcome the worst phase of insurgency, he claims the police are using this time for capacity building. “We are doing our homework, strengthening our basic policing activities, so that, in the future, if we were to face turbulent times again, we will be better prepared to face the problem and resolve it”, he states.
“Despite the best of intentions, we may not perform well in some aspects at some point in time. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to serve the people,” he claims, adding that some challenges do remain and they are working within those constraints.
(The writer is a reporter with The Meghalayan)