Police Commissioner Felicitates Traffic Wardens
Mangaluru: The Police Commissionerate felicitated three traffic wardens at the Police Commissioner’s office here, on July 27.
The programme began with an invocation. DCP OF Crime and Traffic Dr Sanjeev Patil welcomed the gathering. Briefing on the implementation of the system, Dr Sanjeev Patil said that the Traffic Warden Squad was started on the 2nd October, 2015, with 4 Traffic Wardens – Oswald D’Cunha, Roshan Patrao, Maxim Moras and Nelson Pereira – along with 27 students from three colleges. Joe Gonsalves was appointed as the chief traffic warden. “This is a volunteer service where no one gets any incentive. Traffic wardens serve the society voluntarily and assist the traffic police to control the traffic. Let more and more youth and the public join this squad to assist the traffic police,” he said.
Addressing the gathering, Chief Traffic Warden Joe Gonsalves said, “Many years back, there was not much traffic and accidents were also minimum. But nowadays, every day we hear about road accidents. I wanted to start a traffic warden squad with the intention of reducing accidents. With the support and efforts of the then police commissioner S Murugan, it was possible to start the TWS.” Gonsalves thanked Police Commissioner Chandra Sekhar, DCP Dr Sanjeev Patil, DCP Shantharaju, ACP Uday Nayak and Inspector Shivakumar for their efforts.
NRI entrepreneur Michael D’Souza also spoke on the occasion. Three traffic wardens – J Mohammed, Maxim Moras and Mohan – were felicitated by Commissioner Chandra Sekhar along with DCP crime Dr Sanjeev Patil, DCP L&O Shantharaju, ACP Tilakchandra and ACP Uday Kumar.
Retired Criminology professor of Roshni Nilaya, Dr Ashok speaking on the occasion said, “It was a good initiative to start the TWS, but we also need to increase the number of traffic wardens. This is a noble work and the youth should join the TWS as at present we see only senior citizens taking part in this. We need to involve the youth in TWS since their participation is very less. We need to train students by holding meetings and workshops.”
He also said that when an accident occurs, people usually hesitate to help the victims. “We need to bring awareness among the people to help accident victims,” added Dr Ashok.
Proprietor and editor-in-chief of www.mangalorean.com, Violet Pereira addressed the gathering and said, “Many times, we blame the police when there is a traffic jam or an accident due to the negligence of the driver, but forget that we ourselves are responsible for the accidents or traffic jams. People should follow traffic rules and join hands with the police to control accidents and traffic jams.”
Violet also urged Police Commissioner Chandra Sekhar to stop the police from troubling people by asking about their whereabouts and holding them as a witnesses when they help accident victims. She also gave an example of her own experience when she had saved accident victims and admitted them to the hospital. She was asked by the police to come to the police station and sign papers that she had admitted the victims to the hospital.
Speaking on the occasion, Police Commissioner Chandra Sekhar said that the work of the wardens should be highlighted so that more people are interested in such work. Appreciating the service of Traffic Wardens, he said, “It is very easy to sit inside an air-conditioned room and say ‘this is not right, that is not right’! There are some people like Traffic Warden Mohan who show concern towards others. Our wardens have stood with the people and helped the police department. I have the greatest regards towards TWS. We need to be the change that we want to see in society. If there are any problems, bring it to the notice of the police.”
Chandra Sekhar also said that a circular will be sent to all the police stations on how to handle the situation during an accident. “If anyone helps an accident victim, he/she will not be questioned or harassed by the police. They are doing a good job by helping the accident victims,” he added.
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NGO of Anti-Pollution Drive Arjun Rai and DCP L&O Shantharaju also spoke on the occasion. ACP Traffic Tilakchandra delivered the vote of thanks. PC Harish Baikampady compered the programme.
Congratulations to Traffic Wardens and thanks to Your efforts in controlling Traffic on Lawless Mangalore Streets. You are putting Your life in danger along with Traffic Police while standing in between traffic jams. I made hand held “Stop” Signs to help the Traffic Police. But they did not show any interest in it. They still loved to show their hand to control Traffic in between the Large Vehicles.. Good Luck to them. I can understand the difficulty while watching these Traffic Police struggling to control unruly Rickshaw drivers and Bus drivers along with Bikers. Here the efforts of Traffic Jawans… Read more »