Kohima youth roll out innovative idea to ease traffic woes

KOHIMA, JULY 30: Traffic congestion in Kohima town is becoming a problem for the populace with number of vehicles increasing year by year. Adding to this woe is the haphazard way of parking by drivers. Not leaving the responsibility solely to the traffic police to ease the traffic problem, the volunteers of PWD Youth Organisation have on July 28 undertaken the job of pasting printed messages on vehicles parking in ‘no parking zones’ in its colony. The PWD Youth Organisation, Kohima has come up with this new and innovative way to educate traffic rules of ‘no parking zone’ to civilize people in a subtle and civilized way. The message read ‘Dear gentleman/lady important, your vehicle has caused inconvenience to hundreds of vehicles today. You must be really special. Thank you. Have a good day’ and another that read ‘Dear gentleman/lady important. For your parking today…the public has suffered. Thank You. Have a good day’. Talking to Eastern Mirror, Teisozhavi Tetso, Advisor PWDYO, PWD Colony, Ward-11 said PWD junction road serves as an important route to many neighboring colonies and to general populace. With several government offices, schools, private companies, union offices and business establishments located at PWD junction, he said the traffic jam has become an everyday issue causing problems to the residents and commuters alike. He said, earlier in 2014, to tackle the menace of traffic congestion in the colony, the PWD youth organisation, ward -11 along with three sectors namely Upper PWDYO, Middle PWDYO and Lower PWDYO volunteered to supervise and check traffic jam at PWD junction road. In 2015, with the initiative and support of PWD Panchayat and approval of Kohima Traffic Police, he said, PWD colony managed to construct a colony traffic point, and along with the traffic police, the youth had put up ‘No Parking signboards’ and even painted road marking signs of ‘No Parking’. Though there has been positive response from many of the citizens of Kohima town, Tetso said it had to face many difficulties in educating those drivers, with some getting angry, shouting, quarrelling which sometimes got into a fight. While some drivers reportedly shouted at the traffic police detailed at the Traffic Point. With the traffic problem not becoming any lesser, he said the colony has come up with this idea of sending a message to all the defaulting car owners, to educate them not to park in ‘no parking zones’ in the most decent well mannered way without any quarrel or fight, while indicating their comfort parking has caused traffic jam in the PWD junction road and has affected the public in general. Meanwhile, chairman of PWD Colony Panchayat has extended full support to this new innovative cause of the youth organisation, and affirmed that the panchayat has empowered the youths of PWD colony to act as agents of change in solving traffic congestion in the colony. In a message to the general public, PWDYO president said, ‘if everyone follows traffic rules and parks car in the correct lane, Kohima won’t have traffic congestion. Let us all support this innovative idea.’ ‘Enough of quarreling, fighting, tyre puncturing etc now just a simple message to convey to defaulters is the core message of the PWD Youth Organisation.