In the month January, a 40-something man walked into the office of the traffic deputy commissioner, complaining that he regularly gets caught in a traffic jam at the Budheshwar Mandir Chowk. He suggested a change in the traffic flow—close one of the entry points to the junction to decongest it. The DCP found it feasible and implemented it within days. A spot check on Wednesday showed that traffic flowed seamlessly at the Chowk, and home guard Ashok Kumar, who was manning the junction, said snarls have come down by 50% after the suggestion was implemented.

The traffic police, which always had an email address, a Twitter handle and a hotline, has now started taking note of citizens’ suggestions.

If you feel that you too have a simple yet effective solution to city’s traffic woes, send your suggestions, complaints or grievance(s) to the DCP at dcp.trafficggn@hry.nic.in.

“The idea is to change the traffic police’s approach towards finding solutions by engaging people who experience these problems, instead of trying to solve them all on our own. We want to make the police more approachable for the public,” DCP (traffic) Himanshu Garg said.

“Once an email is received, it is sent to the traffic inspector (TI) of the area concerned. The inspector then meets the complainant and talks to him/her and submits a report to my office. A three-member complaint-and-feedback cell takes a note of the report in a register and checks with the complainant on whether their suggestion or complaint was resolved,” Garg said, adding that sometimes, if the complainant is not satisfied with the redressal, he himself calls the resident.

The register, kept in a room on the first floor of the traffic tower in DLF Phase 4, had details of 111 such reports filed by traffic inspectors after getting an emails from citizens. While many emails are complaints on fines issued, it also has suggestions and violations reported.

In fact, thanks to a suggestion by 28-year-old resident Shahsikant Varshey a new U-turn may be built closer to Sector 54 Metro station.

“I came to the city about four months ago. I drive every day from Sector 57 to Sector 54 for work and often get caught in traffic. Then I wrote an email requesting the commissioner to create a u-turn closer to Sector 54 Metro station. I was surprised when I got a phone call from the traffic police three days after I had sent the email to police commissioner KK Rao,” Varshey, a chartered accountant, said.

In keeping with the process, Varshey was assigned a traffic inspector whom he met near the Huda City Centre. “He listened to what I had to say and was very friendly,” Varshey said.

The officer submitted a report stating that the plan is feasible, after which the traffic police wrote to the MCG, where the request is pending.

Similarly, based on public suggestions that held merit, the city police made changes at Khandsa Chowk, Golf Course Road, and near Sikanderpur Metro Station in January.

Additionally, the city police is also urging citizens to report traffic violations and help improve on-road discipline through Twitter.

For instance, if you’re stuck in traffic because someone parked their car incorrectly or if you observe any traffic violation, you can tweet a photo of the violation and tag the official Gurugram traffic police handle @Trafficggm to report the matter, and the police would take note of it.

In response to such Tweets, the traffic police has issued 15 challans within the first six days of February.

However, not everyone who wrote to the traffic police is happy with the response they received.

“I wrote an email to the DCP about a defunct traffic signal near Sector 42 and then I got a call from a TI asking me to come to the police station and I did not go. Then I got a call asking to come to the DCP’S office. I would never go to a police station and I started regretting the decision to send the email. It was sort of a harassment,” said a 44-year-old woman, who works as a senior manager in a private company in the city, who did not wished to be identified.

The Hindustan Times checked with the police to find out if her complaint was received and resolved as she said the police’s response has to be more professional.

“Later, the traffic inspector called and talked to me and said that the complaint had been resolved and he was well behaved,” the woman said.

First Published: Feb 07, 2019 14:27 IST