Joda: With traffic snarls becoming severe on various routes and national highways in Keonjhar district, its administration has asked mining companies and industrial units to identify sites as their parking lots within seven days.
Vehicles carrying minerals are being blamed for most of traffic woes on various roads. The issue had earlier been taken up at meetings and agitations held at different times.
Taking a serious note of the issue, the district administration held a meeting with the representatives of various mining firms and industrial units at Joda Municipality Hall here Thursday. It deliberated on possible measures to be taken to remedy the traffic problems in the town.
Notably, Orissa POST had recently carried a report about how schoolchildren who got stuck in a traffic jam for hours on Murga-Beleipada road suffered.
Traffic woes are routine on NH-520, Murga-Bileipada Road and Joda-Bamebari Road even as the expansion of the Joda-Bamebari Expressway is in progress.
Collector Ashish Kumar Thakre and Champua sub-collector asked the mining companies and industrial units to have their own parking lots. They were also asked to engage security guards and vehicles for patrolling the road.
He underscored the need for proper measures to ensure that schoolchildren and ambulances do not get stuck on roads for hours owing to traffic jams.
The mining firms were asked to arrange road patrols and act according to police suggestions in tackling traffic jams on the Joda-Bamebari road.
The collector made it clear that if these roads witness traffic snarls, the owners of the mining companies, industrial units, trucks, truck owners’ associations and drivers will be held responsible and taken to task.
Thousands of mineral-laden vehicles and trucks are operating on NH-520 (from Guali to Bileipada), on Joda-Jurudi-Bamebari road, Kalimati-Palaspanga road, Barbil-Bhadrasahi road, Murga-Bileipada road. Common people, school and college students have been routinely facing traffic jams on these routes and getting stuck in the middle of roads.
It is alleged that some transport agencies have engaged heavy vehicles from outside the state in mineral transportation in the district. They have become a major cause of traffic jams, locals alleged.
PNN