Better times ahead for commuters

HYDERABAD: In a development that could help ease traffic congestion on city roads, various government departments on Monday decided to coordinate better to make the proposed Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) a success.GHMC Commissioner  M T Krishna Babu,  APSRTC  Managing Director B Prasada Rao,  Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) CV Anand and ORR  Project Director K Bhasker held a meeting and reviewed traffic conditions and future plans and vis-a-vis the HMDA master plan. The consultants appointed by the Japanese International Coopration Agency (JICA) gave a presentation about ITS Hyderabad. Previously, the works related to traffic management, junction improvements and provision of bus shelters etc, were being taken up by the heads of the departments concerned. With the ITS, all the parties involved have come on to one platform to take up these works.The GHMC Commissioner informed that JICA has in-principle agreed to fund the project and prepared a master plan for its implementation. He said that GHMC will look after lane marking even though it is costlier.During the meeting, it was felt that the bus tracks should be earmarked on the extreme left side of the road and the road marking should be displayed on signages and on roads as well. Responding to a query by Prasada Rao, the Commissioner suggested that the APSRTC can take up construction of bus shelters on charity basis without involvement of advertisements and he also informed that the finalisation of construction of bus shelters will be done only after the joint inspection of the departments concerned. The Commissioner asked APSRTC to provide the list of bus shelters, which are without facilities, so that GHMC can contact the agency, and get the work done. The  Commissioner also informed that even GHMC is ready to take up the work on their own, depending on the urgency. P Suresh Raju, Founder, Vaada (NGO) requested for the provision of pelican crossing on major roads and Commissioner, GHMC  promised to look into the pelican crossing study and see the viability on major roads along with HTRIMS in the first phase itself.