Missing grills along Amritsar's BRTS corridor a cause for concern

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 22

The Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) corridor along the GT Road was developed to ease traffic flow and provide easy commute.

Five years after its development, the stretch along GT Road remains as chaotic and prone to accidents as ever. One of the many reasons for this is the broken iron grills along the demarcation of BRTS lane hence paving way for trespassing, inter-lane driving and accidents.

The bus service here has been restored after the lifting of the lockdown, but with it, the trespassers and misuse of BRTS lane by vehicles other than Metro buses has become a major cause for accidents.

The open space left by broken or missing iron grills give freeway to traffic rule violators, who drive inside the BRTS lane at high speed. The probability of accidents increases during the winter season, when visibility is compromised due to fog. Encroachments along the BRTS route and dysfunctional streetlights at several points, too, adds to the problem.

The stretch from Chheharta to Pultighar has earlier, too, seen several cases of freak accidents due to missing iron grills and inter-lane driving.

An RTI activist from the city had alleged that iron grills worth Rs30 lakh were stolen along the BRTS corridor on this route due to negligence of authorities in the past four years.

Yet, the missing grills have not been re-installed. With heavy fog now becoming an everyday occurrence, commuters along the BRTS corridor on GT Road remain vulnerable to more such accidents, in the absence of any check on inter-lane driving.