Chandigarh Diary

Express News Service

Mohali civic body on expansion drive The Mohali Municipal Corporation is planning to expand its jurisdiction before the Assembly elections to cash in on the new areas. Last year, the corporation had brought an agenda item in the House meeting to include areas of Sector 91, 92, Sector 82, Sector 66A, Sector 74, Balongi, Barmajra, Baryali, bulk market Phase 11 and area of Sectors 116, 117, 118, 119 (TDI)  within the MC’s jurisdiction. The agenda item was already under the consideration of the state local bodies department and it has asked the corporation to provide the revenue records of all the areas which are to be included within the MC jurisdiction.

Get real time status of buses using dedicated app   Now commuters will now be able to get real-time information on movement of 358 Chandigarh Transport Undertaking buses running on 59 routes in the tri-city (Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula) and timings of their arrival and departure. For the past one year, 100 buses have been on a trial run of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). They will now be able to live-track buses. The expected time of arrival or departure will be displayed at terminals, bus shelters through mobile app/web. A control centre has been set-up at ISBT-43. Now, smart cards will be used by commuters for e-ticketing as well as concessional travel. The commuters can recharge or top up their smart cards from customer service points at the ISBT-17 and the ISBT-43, e-Sampark centres, ‘trycityBus’ (a mobile application) and web.

E-Challan gets a push in transparency driveTo bring transparency and curb underhand dealings between violators and traffic police personnel, paper challans for traffic violations in Chandigarh have been done away with. The Chandigarh Police personnel have been directed to stop issuing manual traffic violation challans and hand over all challan books at the traffic lines. An order has been issued to all DSPs and SHOs by DIG Omvir Singh Bishnoi. The Chandigarh Police is using 215 e-challan machines at present. While 120 machines are with the traffic police, 40 are with the police control room unit.

AI-driven traffic signals to ease messy bottlenecksAll 40 traffic light points in the city will be synchronised by December 31. These light points will be equipped with adaptive traffic control system, which automatically gives priority to the direction with heavy traffic flow by allowing maximum green signals. The Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) is carrying out the project of integrated command and control centre (ICCC) ahead of artificial intelligence-based ATCS installation. BEL will implement the pilot project then replicate it in the city. The Chandigarh Smart City Ltd last year signed a contract of Rs 295 crore with BEL for the construction of ICCC complex, supervisory control and data acquisition systems.

Harpreet BajwaOur correspondent in Chandigarh [email protected]