Shillong, June 12: East Khasi Hills deputy commissioner RM Kurbah has said the odd- even implementation at Motphran and Khyndailad will continue.
The decision was from June 5 but the taxi drivers did not adhere to the order.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Kurbah said the imposition of the odd-even system on public transport vehicles has helped ease traffic congestion in the city and the decision was based on the order passed by the Meghalaya High Court.
“I did not say the odd-even system will be in the rest of the town but only in specific areas because of the space constraints. So the order has been passed and we have seen that it has helped,” she said.
The deputy commissioner said the district administration will start conducting checks this week against any violation of the order.
“We have not gone strictly because I received a letter from these people like they wanted to go to the court so they are challenging the court order. So I was waiting for a kind of reaction on that but we will definitely this week do some checking,” she said.
To a question, Kurbah said, “Since we have seen the traffic in those two areas have really gone down but it improves when we start imposing that order, we will definitely try from our level to start imposing that order from tomorrow and see that the road congestion decreases”, she said.
The DC said the system was not extended to private vehicles as a study conducted did not find private vehicles causing traffic congestion in Motphran and Khyndailad.
She said the study had revealed that the public transport vehicles were causing traffic congestion at Khyndailad and Motphran areas because of space constraints as the vehicles are are rotating in the same place.
“So if we leave half of them away from the road then there will be space for everyone to go and it is not the private vehicles which are causing the traffic because they are not standing anywhere, they are moving. Therefore, we cannot compare why we are doing this only for the local taxis,” the DC said.
Taxi charge
The deputy commissioner assured to look into the rates charged by the taxis and public transport vehicles despite the end of Covid pandemic period.
Though the transport department had allowed the local taxis and public vehicles to charge the old rate and take more passengers as per the pre-Covid period, the drivers are taking more passengers but they have not reduced the fare.
