SHILLONG, Dec 22: In the past few days, there has been traffic snarls almost daily in the city prompting vehicles to move at snail’s pace, especially along the route from Civil Hospital towards Upper Shillong.
This has caught the attention of a large number of citizens including senior Congress leader Ampareen Lyngdoh, who has questioned the MDA Government over the delay in coming up with different bylanes and link roads sanctioned during the previous government’s tenure for de-congesting the city roads in the wake of the present traffic situation. “It is very sad we are once again reliving those old nightmares from 2010, when the city used to experience traffic snarls,” she said.
Dreading deterioration in the traffic situation, especially when schools in the city would reopen, the Congress MLA, sharing her experience, lamented that she was stuck in a traffic jam for over two hours on Tuesday.
Admitting that an important link on Shillong Bypass has been broken, the MLA has beseeched the government to address the traffic issue immediately.
She also questioned the government for not allowing two-way traffic movement on the Mawlai Bypass, which was planned to decongest roads in the city.
According to Lyngdoh, even the entry and exit gate in Umling is reportedly witnessing huge traffic snarls leading to people being stuck for 3-4 hours. She opined that the entry and exit point should not have been constructed on the main road.
“All these challenges should have been considered by the government,” she said, while stressing on the need for coordination between the district police of Ri Bhoi, West Jaintia Hills and Shillong, so as to ensure that public do not bear the brunt of traffic snarls.
Shillong, of late, has been witnessing huge traffic snarls as several hundred people are coming out for festival shopping. In addition to this, there is also the challenge posed by trucks and oil tankers, which have been forced to ply on city roads owing to breakage of an important link on Umroi Bypass since the last couple of months.