THE statement is quite revealing; the policemen are reluctant to join the traffic cell of Goa police as they have to face pollution, excessive heat during summer, rains during the monsoon and also have to work beyond stipulated working hours.

This certainly does not augur well for the Goa police which claims to be a professional force. With consistent increase in the number of vehicles, the Goa police should have foreseen the challenges and build a strong base of the traffic police. According to a survey conducted recently, on an average 55,000 vehicles enter and exit Panaji. Of this around 47,000 vehicles enter from the twin IFFI bridges, while the rest of the vehicles enter from Bhatulem-St Cruz and Dona Paula accounting for 8-10,000 and the same number exits from the city everyday. Naturally to manage this amount of traffic rush the traffic cell needs adequate number of hands. At present the traffic cell has one police sub-inspector, 8 assistant sub-inspectors, 12 head constables, and 26 constables. By any standard this is not enough to man various traffic points. Though the sanctioned strength of the cell is much more, it is beyond imagination why the department is not inducting more hands. If the reports are to be believed the posts lying vacant due to retirement of the cops are yet to be filled up. It is hard to comprehend the inertia of the department. With the roads already congested with haphazard parking, even double parking on some roads, the traffic police personnel find it hard to manage the traffic effectively on narrow and busy roads. While the government should strengthen the traffic cell it should come out with a white paper on the traffic system.