VIZAG matters - Sohan Hatangadi's Blog

By what I saw, when snarled in traffic for 2 hours on 31st night, there could be at least a lakh, drunken revelers, on bikes and cars on 31st night and early hours of 1st Jan. It is surprising therefore that only 287 were booked. Perhaps our wonderful men in uniform were lenient that night in the spirit of New Year. But if they booked, say 25,000 and penalized each Rs. 1,000/- they would have collected revenue of rupees 2.5 Crores! Even if there was an administrative expense of say Rs. 25 lakh for the deployment of manpower and the penalizing machinery we would still have a surplus of Rs. 2 crores. Perhaps we should consider outsourcing this activity next year at Rs. 50L for the contractor. Anything they make after expenses is theirs. Something to think about  😁

Vizag police insist that the barricades they put up reduce accidents. Citizens have suggested that it will reduce accidents further if they completely close off our highways. As Vizag's traffic police are adamant about putting barricades on our highways and other roads, perhaps it is time to rename our city.

BARRICADED Vizag police have been barricading our roads for more than a decade. When NH5 was made to run through the populated parts of the city, many people trying to cross the road from the populated areas on either side would get hit by speeding vehicles. It would be proper at that time to make several pedestrian underpass or overbridges. But that did not happen as there was no money with the NHAI to do this type of work. So CMR started advertising on barricades which were placed on certain sections which would slow down traffic and provide cover long enough for pedestrians to scurry across the road. Later the police started saying that these barricades were put up to slow down fleeing Naxalites, making a gateway from the city, say after robbing a bank or a police armoury. Eventually, this theory was jettisoned. And a new explanation was offered saying that it reduced accidents. This was the most blatantly silly reason because one could see that these barriers incre...

Intergalactic space travel and idlies 20th March Times of India Waltair Musings !GQK comes visiting The other day I met my old friend !GQK from the galaxy next door.  He took the wormhole express from planet Gliese 581g and appeared in my guest room quite suddenly. He was tired.  He switched on his universal translator and lamented “I traveled economy class; the universal cash crunch is hitting all us researchers”. After he had got over his space-lag and got used to our local gravity we went down to that vegetarian restaurant on VIP Road. He has been visiting officially once every 10 Earth Years and the first thing he does is enjoy some idly with several chutneys and sambar. Over breakfast we discussed the purpose of his visit this time. Research “I am here to study Vizag’s driving habits” he explained. “We at The Galactic Institute have watched the huge increase in vehicular traffic in Vizag and my boss wanted me to verify the reports that we have ...

Vizag's public transport challenge The bulk of city commuters are those who have to go to work or study every day, six days a week. Driving or riding ourselves gives us some flexibility, plus the air conditioning in the car in summer is indispensable. But still negotiating the unpredictable traffic and lack of parking space is a real pain in that point nearest to our centre of gravity. If you take a motorbike or scooter to commute, the cacophony, heat, smoke and the ubiquitous black dust will make you age faster. Who would want to suffer this if good quality public transport was available easily whenever we wanted it? RTC  buses Office goers, factory workers, teachers and professionals from all walks of life use our RTC bus services. Students travelling to schools and colleges get concessions and though the busses are crowded they are transported quite quickly and economically. More than 100 bus routes crisscross our city from six depots carrying lakhs of people each ...

Every time we talk of tourism we want to cram something more on to our beach road. Our beaches are destination for Events. Food joints.  Shows. Sports. Flash dances. Protests. Rallies. Parties. Awareness drives and every other whimsical idea we come up with. Every alternate day there is some idiotic programme on the beach road as if there is no other place anywhere in Vizag. Every week folk like us are impacted terribly by the sound, increased curb side pollution and gridlock on our roads. Our beaches are suffering and the citizens are suffering. I appeal to all to stop this campaign to do more on our beaches. Leave our beaches alone at least from Coastal Battery to VUDA park.

Vizag’s roads are getting crowded by the day and what with frequent VIP visits it is never easy to keep our roads incident free. Our traffic police have a challenging job of keeping control without being overbearing. Generally speaking our drivers too are not over aggressive. They don’t go crazy with road rage, fifteen year old industrialist’s children in BMWs do not rampage around our streets and drunken actors don’t mow down labourers sleeping on pavements. They don’t show the finger, or wave their fists. In fact there is very little abusive language coming out of cars these days - with the air-conditioned and the windows up we just can’t hear them anymore. It is true that we Vizagites have a couple of stiff ones before heading home amiably from the belt shop and pay our fines quietly when caught by the ever vigilant police. While there is no empirical study Vizag drivers and riders are a civilized lot. However our city roads and our motorists have some remarkable eccentricities th...

Tackling Vizag’s traffic woes Times of India dated 17 January 2016 One of the most dramatic changes that have taken place in Vizag is the numbers of vehicles that are used on our streets. Not only have the numbers increased but also the different types and makes of vehicles. When today’s old timers were in college very few households had bikes or cars. The four-wheelers we would see on the streets were the ugly Ambassador, the plain looking Fiat Premier Padmini and an occasional Mahindra Jeep all which started manufacture in the 1940’s and slowly made its way all over our country. Two-wheelers on the streets were the Vespa, Lambretta, Bullet, Jawa and Rajdoot. In the 1970s you could sit opposite where the RTC Bus Stand is now and would see perhaps 20 private vehicles in an hour of street gazing. Chaos on our roads Then in the late 1990s the automotive industry was released from the shackles of the license Raj and suddenly the action on the street changed. By the year 200...

This was the article as it appeared in the newspaper As I drive around Vizag, I am quite convinced that there is a shadowy group of experts, secretly meeting in an underground control centre somewhere, to work out how to create complete chaos on Vizag roads. They sit in a dimly lit room, around a table, faces lit up by large monitors showing road maps and traffic data. They are busy working out how to design roads to create daily disorder, continuous confusion, terrible turmoil, permanent pandemonium, maximum mayhem and … well you get the point.  Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the secret underground “Chaos Club”. This club, comprising members of local administration, which I cannot name due to the secret nature of their work, has succeeded in permanently fouling up traffic at the infamous Gajuwaka, NAD Kotha Road and Sathyam junctions. They have ensured that those junctions will drive drivers crazy in perpetuity. At Aseelmetta this secret group has ensured that o...