Traffic assistance posts do little but collect fines

Half an hour later. The Traffic Assistance Post, Sankarda. Dr Bhatt hammers on the door. After a fair while, a very sleepy policeman opens the door and pokes his head out. “He was drunk,” recounts Bhatt. “Absolutely reeking of alcohol.” Bhatt tells him there has been an accident. “Has anyone died?” asks the policeman. He slams the door on Bhatt’s face when the reply is in the negative.

This sequence of events, according to Dr Bhatt, was only the beginning of his travails that night.

The Traffic Assistance Posts are equipped with a crane each and Maruti Gypsy vans with wireless and first aid kits, christened Chetaks. They are meant to rush to the scene of an accident, provide first aid to victims, rush them to hospital. But Bhatt found out otherwise.

“I pounded on the TAP door again,” says Bhatt. “When he opened it again I told him his boss was a friend of mine. Only when he was convinced of this did he let me in.”

There was no first aid box, says Bhatt. They didn’t even have cotton to stop the bleeding. When he asked for cotton, the now worried policemen brought him some. There were cottonseeds in it. It had been hastily torn out of a pillow.

There was no crane either. It was around four o’clock when help finally reached his companions, according to Bhatt. “If anyone had been seriously injured he would have died by then,” he says.

DSP B.D. Waghela, who is in charge of the TAPs, however, says, “Every day they are attending to many accidents.”

When told that some of the TAP’s do not even have first aid boxes, he says arrangements are being made, and that a doctor is expected to donate some kits soon. To further questions, Waghela said he couldn’t give details before July 15.

Express Newsline contacted the Sankarda TAP. Sub-inspector G.R. Gadhvi, who is posted there, said, “Our duty mainly involves highway patrolling. If there are accidents on the highway, we rush the victims to hospital. Yes, we have first aid boxes. We give first aid ourselves. There is no medical staff, our people give the first aid.” And are they trained? “Well, the staff keeps changing, but we train the new people ourselves over here”.

Gadhvi says that there is no crane or phone at the post. But they do have a speed radar, he announces. “We patrol the highways, check dangerous driving, and impose spot fines for overspeeding.” This, he says, is their “main task”. Each Chetak collects Rs 50,000-60,000 in fines every month.

When Express Newsline enquired about the number of accidents and the number of people they attend to, the policemen were unable to provide any figures. “About fifty,” said one of them vaguely.

A survey of the `Chetak’ vehicle revealed that there was no first aid box. The casing for the first aid box was being used to hold tools. And the stretcher couldn’t be extracted from where it was kept under the seat because the door built for the purpose had been secured with wire from the inside. It was obvious that the stretcher hadn’t been used for a very long time — probably not since the ribbon cutting ceremony.

TAPs elsewhere do not seem to fare much better. South Gujarat has two TAPs on National Highway 8, one at Umbhel in Surat district and the other at Balwada in Navsari district. While the one at Balwada is yet to begin functioning, the one at Umbhel reflects the same lackadaisical attitude towards accident victims. What makes it worse here is that the health department proves to be equally culpable.

Umbhel TAP has a health department administered Jeevan Raksha Kendra, an imported high-tech mobile trauma unit which has finally come to rest there. The Kendra is equipped to perform operations if required. However, no operations are ever performed there, according to sources. Indeed, even the van’s water purifying unit and other electrical gadgetry do not work, reports Dr Bhatt who has visited the place. The reason, he says, is simple: the equipment runs on DC supply, which the vans don’t have.

The accident victim’s name has been changed at his request.