Team Herald
VASCO: After repeated failures to convince the state government, Verna Industries Association (VIA) has finally managed to get the project of traffic signals at Birla crossroads and at Verna IDC junction on National Highway 17 road sponsored by a private company at Verna IDC.
It may be recalled that on several occasions, VIA had raised the issue of accidents taking place at Birla crossroads and at Verna IDC junction and had demanded for traffic signals. Likewise VIA, even the Vasco Traffic Cell on July 7, 2014 proposed for electronic traffic signals at both junctions but despite repeated reminders, the proposal did not materialise allegedly due to step-motherly treatment by the government.
“We had kept high hopes that our demand for traffic signals to curb the number of accidents taking place at both crossroads would be fulfilled, however despite concrete assurance by Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar on August 21, 2015, the demand remained unfulfilled,” said Damodar Kochkar, president of Verna Industries Association.
As per Kochkar, both these junctions including Birla crossroad junction with one road from NH 17 connects to Verna IDC via Chikitsa Hospital and Vasco via NH 17 B has literary become a death trap. Similarly, the Titan junction, which is a T Junction with one road leading to main entrance of Verna IDC, has been facing huge traffic flow poses a death trap for commuters as well as pedestrians crossing the road.
“We could not wait for more time to see people losing their lives and thus the moment traffic cell officials asked us to look out for sponsors, we decided to ask our members and one of the members agreed to sponsor solar based traffic signal worth Rs 18 Lakh and to avoid any confusion, even the maintenance of the traffic signal would be taken care of by the same private company and now we have been trying to seek the Chief Minister’s appointment for inaugurating traffic signals but we are unable to do so,” Kochkar told.
Meanwhile, it is learnt from reliable sources that the traffic signal would be inaugurated in the last week of November. Sources also informed that the by next week all the installation work of traffic signals would be completed, followed by vehicle count on each road so as to synchronise signal timing on each direction of the road.
