Mumbai: College students to pitch in to handle traffic mess

Wardens have been helping traffic police in regulating traffic for the last four years. File pic/ Bipin Kokate

Mumbai will have another 10,000 traffic wardens to help the traffic police discipline motorists by preventing traffic jams. The Traffic Police Department has identified 25 such spots in Mumbai, where the wardens will work along with the traffic police to regulate the traffic.

Physical fitness important

These wardens will assist police officers in regulating traffic and will be mostly college students associated with NSS and NCC. Talking about the selection, officials said, they are in touch will the heads of NSS and NCC colleges and have a list of the students. The students will be notified about the opportunity and those interested will have to register their names. Once done, their physical fitness will be checked and if the department feels okay, the candidates will be selected.
Each candidate will have to give just three hours a week to the traffic police. In this way, the traffic police will get 30,000 hours in a week.

Inadequate traffic cops

Traffic issue in Mumbai is increasing owing to several infrastructure works going on simultaneously in many parts of the city. The city's population is around 1.5 crore and there are about 4,000 traffic police for 1.5 lakh vehicles, which is inadequate. According to sources, there should be 1,000-1,200 policemen on the streets of Mumbai all the time, but due to the low number of traffic police, wardens are hired by the department to help out.

Pedder Road, CSMT Junction, Crawford market, Worli Naka, Mahim Church, Prabhadevi, Bisleri Junction, Milan Subway, Jogeshwari Link Road etc are some of the important junctions identified by the department.

All traffic wardens will get uniforms and ID cards.

"We will control traffic at such places with the help of wardens, who will reduce the stress on the traffic police," said joint commissioner of traffic, Yashsvi Yadav.

"Around 7,500 of the 10,000 wardens will be college students. We will select them and uniforms and identity cards will be given by the Traffic Department," Yadav added.

Interested candidates will have to register their names with the traffic department. Once done, their physical fitness will be checked and if found meeting requisite criteria, the candidate is selected.

Speaking to mid-day, a 50-year-old traffic warden said, "We do our duty with the traffic police and the company pays us. But we don't get any other facilities."

Some history

In 1873, the Bombay Tramway Company started a horse-drawn tram service in Mumbai. This resulted in the need for having a traffic regulator in the city. In 1924, the first traffic control room was started in Mumbai. With traffic increasing every day, the need for traffic wardens have was felt and they have been working with the traffic police for the past four years. The traffic police have around 350 traffic wardens.

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