OBSERVATION

Managing roads during VVIP visits

One much talked about event last week was the visit of the President of Sri Lanka to Nepal. This was the first time that the Sri Lankan President was visiting this Himalayan Kingdom.

However apart from the visit itself, one aspect that was much talked about, was the security of the visiting President. With seven Tamil suspects being arrested from Kathmandu just before her arrival, there was even more panic at what may happen. After all the Tamil militants, who have been waging a separatist war for many years under the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, had been able to break the security cordon of such people like former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lanka’s own president and defense minister.

However a much written about topic and much discussed among the public, was the road blocks created by the State Visit. It is not that the people were unhappy about the visit. As could be seen by the enthusiastic response from the people who waited to greet President Kumaratunga from the sidewalks, the people wholeheartedly welcomed the visiting President. But many were angry at the local traffic police for creating road blocks at different places.

Naturally, the traffic police alone may not be at fault. As this was a state visit, security personnel of different government agencies must have been involved in planning the travel of the VVIP visitor. But our traffic personnel have demonstrated time and again that they don’t care to thing about the inconvenience of the general people. They just wave them off at a moment’s notice, not caring who may have to go where and in what sort of a situation. Many emergency meetings could have gone hay wire, forget the usual inconvenience.

In the present visit, people were held up to about three hours at a stretch at some places. There were incidents when women and children were left stranded in far away places. The same thing must have happened to any foreign traveller who went out at the wrong time. A school girl coming from Baneswor to Dillibazar was taken to Bhaktapur. The worried parents found out about this after frantic searches throughout the evening.

It must be remembered that the streets of Kathmandu are already over crowded without any additional burden. When main thoroughfares are closed to traffic for hours, one can imagine the chaos that takes place all around.

For example, on the second day roads were closed in mid town. A person who was coming from Dillibazar to go to New Road was caught in the ensuing traffic jam. As the vehicles moved at a snail’s pace in the scorching heat, the traffic police diverted the flow from Dillibazar towards Putali Sadak. There was no turning back, as the opposite going traffic was also equally jammed. The vehicles owners probably thought a right turn could be made in the usual place at Exhibition Road near Bina Chambers and they could head towards their destination, but no, the road was blocked.

Moving forward, the vehicles were not allowed to make a right turn at Singha Durbar too. This right turn is closed at other times as well. Then still a bit forward, no right turn was allowed near the road that goes towards the Army headquarters as well. The traffic then moved towards Thapathali. Here as a bridge is being constructed near Blue Star Hotel, vehicles couldn’t make a right turn. That meant you just went ahead to Lalitpur when you wanted to go towards New Road! Couldn’t motorists have been warned, or couldn’t an alternate route have been thought of?

One can imagine what happened to unwitting people who were riding on taxis, specially the women and children and also foreigners. Either you paid through the nose or got stranded at some obscure place.

In one incident, a government official informed that many secretaries and other government officials who were to attend the civic reception in honor of the President, were trapped within Singha Durbar and they couldn’t attend the function because of the road blocks.

One good aspect was that it did not rain during the afternoons during the entire visit of the President. This was amazing, as this is the peak Monsoon season here in Nepal. If it had rained, not only would the general people have suffered more, but even the security people would have had a hard time.

Anyway, the constant traffic jams in the City created much resentment among the people and virtually every person, from vehicle owners to those that had to travel by public transport, were seething with anger at the trouble that they had to endure.

Such angering the general people is not a good thing. The resentment that slowly builds up, is damaging for everyone and it could burst through different ways. Everyone must keep this in mind.

So, right from now, security and traffic personnel must plan how they can handle VVIP movement without disturbing and disrupting normal traffic.

Like pointed out by some, if the visit of one VVIP can create so much chaos, what will the authorities do when six visiting heads of state and government are here during the SAARC summit that is going to take place in Kathmandu in some months time?

This is a pragmatic question and the authorities concerned have to think about what they will do right from now. Naturally, an outright solution may not be at hand, but with planning and effort, the situation could be eased to a great extent. Time will show whether our authorities are capable of this or not.