These days, we have been witnessing top officials directing the officers of various departments to carry out the work which they should have been routinely doing. There shouldn’t have been a need for calling high-level meetings to tell the officers to do what their job is. Be it the officers of the traffic department or any other department, for that matter, they need to do their routine work without being told to do so because they are being paid for the work which they should do and not for waiting to be told what they need to do.
The comments we are making here are in connection with a meeting which was recently chaired by the Chief Secretary of J&K in which the traffic department was told to devise an effective traffic management plan within 15 days so that the traffic in the Srinagar city is regulated and the commuters provided a seamless commute throughout the city. But, we might pause here and ask, isn’t that what the traffic department should have been doing on its own without being told to do so? Because, the sorry state of affairs of the traffic regulation in the city centre as well as several other areas of the Srinagar city is in front of everyone, especially the traffic department, whose number of regulation plans, put forth before, have already hit the wall.
Instead of telling the traffic department to get onto their toes and do what they need to, they should have been asked about the reasons, and causes that led to the failure of earlier plans and what novel approach would they take to ensure that the new plan—which they might come up with—does not meet the same fate. Such high-level meetings are ideally called in to discuss the strategy, and pull up those concerned for not doing what they are supposed to do, particularly, grilling them about their failures so that the same is not repeated in the future at any cost. But here happens the opposite.
There is a need for doing away with treading the already trodden path, and holding meetings for formalities; ending up wasting time and resources, rather, the officers on the ground—who know the situation better—should themselves rise to the occasion and do what is expected of them, without waiting for high-level, high-voltage meetings to be held and the necessary directions passed.
As of now, there is no traffic regulation in the city; a larger plan is missing; down to the details, traffic lights are defunct; those operational are not being adhered to; wrong parking galore; violation of traffic rules rampant: the traffic department does not require Chief Secretary to tell them what’s wrong with the city’s traffic. They better do it on their own while we wait for the 15 days to pass, expecting to see a change on city roads. Hopefully!
