The recce and rehearsals for the BRICS Summit are being held daily along the Airport and Summit Hotel route.
On Sunday, recce and rehearsal of a number of vehicles including the VIPs and the military convoys, held along the route, exposed loopholes in the Margao traffic scenario especially along the major roads.
The recce and rehearsal on the routes designated for VIP vehicles started in morning and went on till afternoon wherein convoys of over 10-15 vehicles of each team started from the airport then via Birla and Nuvem Junctions and later proceeded towards the partner hotels in Arossim, Benaulim and the Summit Hotel in Mobor. This recce aimed at finding and planning to unclog potential problem areas or hindrances for the convoys.
As the convoys will take the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the heads of the four other BRICS nations and seven other visiting nations, the need for making this area problem free and safe for the convoy becomes imperative.
The list of 495 of the thousands of police personnel designated for the traffic arrangement has been displayed at the Margao Police Headquarters. Superintendent of Police South Goa, Shekhar Prabhudessai said, “The entire State police force, which comprises of over 6000 personnel, has been drafted for various arrangements. In addition, nine companies of para military forces have already been roped in.”
Speaking on the rehearsals, Prabhudessai said, “These were similar to those held on Saturday and the same would continue till Wednesday. This rehearsal is to streamline all the routes of the convoys for corrections and changes,” he said.
Asked whether these rehearsals will benefit the State traffic mechanism, he said, “The system will definitely help track inconsistency of the mechanism and will provide further tips to tweak the system.”
However, when Herald visited spots at Kadamba bus stand and Colva circle, it found that public transport vehicles and others caused lots of problems for the convoys to pass by. The police, however, have planned to halt all traffic to ensure a clear passage of the convoys during the summit days. The actual convoys of the leaders will have over 50 vehicles in a single line, which will takes several minutes or over half an hour to pass by. Traffic police in that case will play a major part. A traffic police at Old Market Circle, which is a major junction the convoy has to pass through, was heard saying, “Can’t judge what is happening here and how to handle this traffic.”
A daily commuter Sharmad Kamat, speaking to Herald said, “Doesn’t matter if the roads will be shut for a while, but the biggest take away of BRICS for South Goa, especially Salcete, will be the enhanced infrastructure, which is going to bring relief.”
Margao Traffic Police Mohan Gaude said, “The physical changes and expansion of the roads have helped the traffic. The corners and intersections have been trimmed so that the intersection is safe for incoming and oncoming traffic.”
