Cake stir to set up signal at Indiranagar underpass

Nashik: Rarely a cake takes the centre stage of on agitation here as it happened on Thursday when the Aam Admi Party (AAP) raised the issue of people’s inconveniences at the Indiranagar underpass.
AAP volunteers tried to draw the attention of the police, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the civic department by conducting by cutting a cake at the spot to mark one year of the re-opening of the underpass without any provision of a road signal.
The AAP activists cut the cake with some of them sporting the masks of a ghost with a message that the underpass has become “a ghost of incomplete projects”. The residents have been for long demanding a road signal at the underpass given the perennial traffic snarls.
Jagbir Singh, an AAP activist, said, “Exactly a year ago, the underpass was re-opened for motorists but without any provision of a road signal. A year on, the motorists are using the underpass and still waiting for a road signal. Though funds for the signal have also been made available, the facility is still not there. The celebration of a year’s completion of the underpass is a sarcastic agitation to highlight the lethargy of the departments concerned.”
Vinayak Bhave, another party activist, said, “There are quite a few schools around the area and parents take their children to the institutes through the risky underpass. In morning hours, even the police are not present at the underpass. It’s a dangerous road to drive through.”
The AAP activists claimed that the traffic cops generally reach the spot around 9 am, while the rush of school vans and other vehicles is maximum between 7am and 8am. “An accident is just waiting to occur,” an activist said.
Senior police officials of the traffic department said that they too were awaiting installation of the road signal as it would save them from their day-long effort of releasing traffic from one side of the highway followed by the other side.
With constant rush of traffic on either side of the highway connected by the underpass, motorists using the highway cannot gauge if a vehicle is coming out of the underpass. Similarly, motorists using the highway cannot make out if a vehicle is coming from the highway.
Jayant Bajbale, assistant commissioner of police (traffic,) said, “The signal will be set up by the Nashik Municipal Corporation. According to our knowledge, all approvals are in place for the facility. We hoping that the signal comes up at the earliest.”
The Indiranagar underpass was closed by the Nashik police for nearly 10 months in view of frequent accidents and traffic snarls. But following much pressure from various quarters, the Nashik police finally threw open the underpass in March 2016. Since the traffic department has to deploy at least four police personnel to manage the vehicular flow , traffic officials had proposed a signal at the junction and it was approved in no time.