MAPUSA
Within a week, the new academic year will kick off and schools will reopen but the traffic signals at the key court junction are yet to come up.
Without traffic signals in place, managing traffic during the school hours becomes a nightmare at the junction.
With at least four schools and a college in the vicinity, the court junction is easily the busiest intersection in Mapusa and during school hours the junction turns very chaotic.
In absence of the traffic signals, for the last several months traffic police and the traffic wardens (volunteers) would manage the traffic at the junction.
The situation turns dangerous for motorists and gets worse at peak hours in the morning and afternoon.
Residents of the area have been complaining about the situation for a long time.
“For a lone traffic police, in absence of the traffic warden, the situation becomes very difficult to manage. It is frustrating when we go to drop our children to school. The authorities should have some priority while taking up works. Installing traffic signals is the need of the hour at the junction,” said Peter D’Sa, a parent who drops his son in St Britto's High School.
The opposition councillors also questioned the lackadaisical approach of the ruling group when it comes to priority tasks.
“Some decisions have to be taken in a time-bound manner. We had taken a resolution to install the traffic signals at the junction around one year back but so far nothing has happened. It shows lack of priority of the civic body,” Shashank Narverkar told The Goan.
In the past there were traffic signals set up at the junction. However, the civic body decided to discontinue the service of the former contractor as the signals constantly failed.
The Mapusa Municipal Council (MMC) has now entrusted the job to a new contractor, who besides the court junction, is supposed to install traffic signals at four other areas in Mapusa.
“The contractor has already erected the poles to fix the traffic signals. We are expecting the signals to be up and functioning from Monday (June 5) onwards,” said Priya Mishal, MMC Chairperson.
