With the odd-even scheme meeting with a fair bit of "success", Transport Minister Gopal Rai today said that he was "more anxious" the night before the rolling out of the car-rationing plan than on the eve of the Delhi polls counting day.
The 15-day car-rationing pilot plan had come into effect from January 1, and the minister claimed, he was sleepless on the night of December 31, but it was during this tense period that he came up with a strategy to help make the scheme a success.
"When I called up my officers in the morning of December 31, they told me that they were on off today. When bureaucrats went on the mass leave against the government, I could not sleep that night and prepared a strategy throughout the night to make odd-even a success.
"I was not so tense even the night before Delhi went to polls (counting day), as I was on December 31, a day before the odd-even was to be implemented," Rai told reporters here.
The transport minister said, "That night (December 31), we prepared a strategy and decided to deploy AAP volunteers to assist the civil defence personnel in doing their assigned work. Finally, we successfully implement the scheme."
The 15-day-long scheme was largely welcomed from all quarters and the AAP government claimed it was a fair "success".
Delhi Assembly polls was held on February 7 last year and the counting of votes took place on February 10. AAP made a stunning comeback with a mega haul of 67 seats in a 70-member House.
Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands Civil Services (DANICS) officers had on December 31 gone on mass-leave against the AAP government's decision to suspend two senior officers of its Home Department for refusing to sign on a Cabinet decision file.
To support the cause, IAS officers had gone on mass-leave till afternoon that day.
He added that with an aim to make the first phase of scheme a success, we had to exempt bikes from the traffic- rationing scheme.
Speaking in a lighter vein, Rai also said that during the scheme, there were "less instances of quarrel" between husbands and wives, as travelling time had reduced due to congestion-free roads.
(Reopens DES 10)
In the meeting, minister said that they reviewed the complaints of lack of coordination between traffic police, enforcement wing and civil defence volunteers at a local level.
To deal with traffic congestion, government has also set up special monitoring team, to be headed by Special Commissioner Sandeep Goel, to do a proper monitoring of traffic signals across the national capital.
He added that the decision was taken after government received several complaints against improper functioning of traffic signals which were causing traffic snarls on the capital's roads.
Unlike the first phase, traffic congestion is being reported in various areas including Nehru Palace, ITO, Laxmi Nagar, Bhairav Sing-Marg, INA and some other parts of South Delhi during the second phase of odd-even scheme.
Rai said that as per preliminary report, opening of schools and construction and repair works are causing traffic jams during the ongoing scheme. In view of this, government has directed PWD, DMRC and DJB to carry out their construction and repair works at night to avoid traffic jam.
Few days before the second phase of the road-rationing plan, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had announced that if the scheme tuns out to be successful, government may seriously consider implementing it for 15 days every month.
