Lessons in traffic rules and management, student to student……..Prashant Rangnekar
Don’t be surprised if you see a group of college students manning traffic in Bhiwandi. The police have posted about 300 National Service Scheme (NSS) volunteers from colleges at heavy traffic spots to educate the young about traffic regulations.
They help the traffic police manage traffic and also give lectures and act in plays about traffic rules to other school and college students. Most of them are Muslims, and girls outnumber boys.
Four years ago, police-public relations hit a low in communally tense Bhiwandi with the lynching of two policemen and the arrest of 100 people.”This project helps us improve police-public relations. It was not possible without the involvement of the youth,” says Rashmi Karandikar, ACP (traffic), who is heading the project.
Traffic has always been a problem in the powerloom town with more than 50,000 warehouses. Also, unlike other municipal corporations in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Bhiwandi-Nizampura’s has no traffic unit.
“Working with the traffic cops on duty, we have learnt to manage traffic,” says Swapnil Bhoir, 21, a TYBA student of BNN College. For Bhoir, a resident of Padgha, it was a fatal accident near his village that prompted him to join the group. “Now these volunteers can handle heavy traffic at Mankoli and Anjur Phata, the most difficult areas,” says traffic police constable Manoj Kadam.
The major role is lessons in traffic laws. Different groups get different courses. “For schoolchildren below Standard VIII, the programme revolves around painting and essay competitions. Most minor offenders are from standards VIII, IX and X and we concentrate most on them,” says Ansari Afaf, 19, doing SY BCom at G M Momin Women’s College and coordinating the programme.
As part of the programme, when minors are involved in an offence, the cops summon their parents and take an undertaking from them. “We also hold interviews with minors. Most are booked for rash driving and not wearing a helmet; they usually say they want to impress girls,’ says Karandikar. The cops have till date conducted 121 such interviews.