For the New Delhi resident, heavy traffic jams, accidents, poor coordination at traffic signals are everyday fare. While some of us have learnt not to react, there is now a forum that enables the Delhi citizen to ask questions, offer suggestions and become “fans” – all on the recently launched Delhi Traffic Police Facebook page. In just three days, it crossed 1000 fans and now has 1,713 people who “like” the page.
While the aim seems to have been to set up a strong two-way communication channel with citizens, image building for the Commonwealth Games, which the city will host in October, is clearly an objective too.
“Management of traffic in Delhi, during Commonwealth Games, will be a big challenge as well as a great opportunity,” the police say on the page. “Delhi Traffic Police cannot possibly succeed without the active participation and co-operation of all road users in Delhi.”
This page allows Delhi road users to request police presence in certain areas, make complaints, and ask questions, for example about the fines for different traffic offenses. A few have also expressed their appreciation for the work of the traffic police.
“We have launched this page to know the views of the public and establish a flow of communication with the residents of Delhi,” says Mr. Rajan Bhagat, spokesperson for the Delhi Police.
“We need suggestions to improve. Every comment cannot be an appreciation, thus we are looking into the problems faced by the residents of Delhi and this is a new channel,” added Mr. Bhagat.
The page administrators encourage the followers of this page to send their grievances toinfo@delhittrafficpolice.nic.in.
When asked about the response, Mr. Bhagat said, “The response has been great, we have been receiving a number of emails and are trying to respond to each grievance as quickly as possible.”
The page also acts as a traffic monitoring service of sorts, with Delhi traffic information posted on an hourly basis by both the police and Facebook users, with messages like, “Traffic obstruction at GT Karnal road as one HTV broke down” or “Vehicle has been removed and traffic normalized.”
Such updates have received numerous “Facebook likes” and have also inspired Facebook members to post traffic updates from wherever they are.
Mr. Lalit Kumar Sharma, the administrator of the page was very upbeat as he said, “We can change, together, step by step.”
Going by the We Hate Mumbai Traffic Police Facebook page, the Mumbai Traffic Police would do well to follow suit.
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