Can road safety be ensured effectively without adequate manpower in a town where the traffic scenario is turning from bad to worse with each passing day?
This is the question that did the rounds at the launch of the National Road Safety week on Monday as the authorities realised that the Margao traffic cell is grossly understaffed and RTO is finding it difficult to spare its personnel to descend on the roads to regulate and enforce traffic rules.
The Margao Traffic cell is plagued by a manpower shortage and government’s move to place at its disposal home guards and security personnel has failed to meet the requirements.
It is estimated that the Margao Traffic cell requires an additional 40 constables for effective regulation and enforcement of traffic in the town.
No doubt, the home guards have come in handy for the overloaded traffic cell, but senior traffic officials say that only sanction of the additional personnel can help tide over the situation in the town.
Sources said that successive governments have only paid lip service to the need to strengthen the Margao Traffic cell with adequate manpower. Sources said there is even no sufficient manpower to man the CCTV cameras, installed in the town for which lakhs of rupees under the MPLAD scheme were spent.
