The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Law & oder

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 29, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Law & oder

During the rallies vehicular movement gets severely affected causing inconvenience to the public, writes K.V. Subramanya

Rallies continue to cause trouble to people

THE DELAY in the State Government complying with the Karnataka High Court order on restricting rallies in the city has forced the public to bear with the hardships caused by them.

In July 2005, the High Court directed the State Government to provide land outside the city for holding rallies.

The court observed that processions taken out by political parties and organisations should not pass through the streets in the city. It also ruled that the organisers of the rallies should give a week's notice to the Government.

Even a year after the court order, the situation continues to be the same.

For instance, on Monday traffic came to a near halt in central parts of the city due to the rallies taken out by the Bharatiya Janata Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the contract employees of Karnataka Power Corporation Limited at Basaveshwara Circle and Mysore Bank Circle.

During the rallies vehicular movement gets severely affected causing inconvenience to the public.

Most of the processions originate either from Chikkalalbagh or Banappa Park and pass through the busy Mysore Bank Circle, Kempe Gowda Road, Anand Rao Circle, Hudson Circle, K.R. Circle, GPO Circle and Gopala Gowda Circle.

Traffic jams in these busy areas often affects the traffic in the surrounding areas such as J.C. Road, Seshadri Road, Palace Road, Kengal Hanumanthaiya Road, Raja Ram Mohun Roy Road, Lalbagh Road, Kasturba Road, Mahatma Gandhi Road, St. Marks' Road, Residency Road, Sankey Road, T. Chowdaiah Road and Cunningham Road.

According to the traffic police, around one lakh vehicles pass through Hudson Circle every hour daily during peak time.

One can imagine the situation if traffic at this busy junction is blocked for hours, as it happens during rallies.

While the public wants the police to take steps to divert vehicular movement and clear traffic snarls during processions, senior police officials say such diversions are not always possible.

There are no parallel roads in the busy areas where we can allow the processions on one road and divert the vehicles to the other.

Most of the roads are already carrying traffic more than their capacity, a traffic official explains.

Secondly, diversion of vehicles during rallies is difficult as none of the processions starts on time.

The official suggests that it should be made mandatory that those organising processions serve a notice, at least 10 days in advance, to the police so that they can work out some measures to prevent traffic jams. The organisers should also be made to provide the route map and timings of the procession and strictly adhere to them. Stringent punishment should be awarded to those who violate them, he suggests.

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