Wayanad: With the Christmas and New Year festival holidays around the corner, the traffic increased through the Wayanad Ghat creating extreme traffic snarl from Friday night.
As the long winding queue of vehicles reached the 2nd bend in the ghats towards Wayanad and to Adivaram town, towards Kozhikode, the police advised tourists towards Wayanad to carry sufficient water and snacks with them
According to the volunteers of the Churam Samrkashana Samithy which monitors the vehicular movement through the ghat road during heavy traffic, it was a heavy truck that got stuck at the 6th hairpin bend of the ghat stretch that triggered the traffic snarl towards 11 pm on Friday. “It took almost three hours for our volunteers to put things on the right track but by the time the traffic was attaining normalcy, by 6 am, again another 16-wheeler truck with cement got stuck in the ghat road due to mechanical issues”, said Moidu Muttayi, president, Churam Samrakshana Samithy. According to Moidu, “It took the volunteers another three hours to resume the traffic through the ghat road, though only in ‘one way’, on a slow pace”. However, with a long line of vehicles waiting at Adivaram, most vehicles carrying tourists, it takes another three hours to assume normal traffic.
Meanwhile, the heavy truck that got stuck on the road due to mechanical trouble has been repaired and moved.
The narrow roads and endless traffic chaos of passengers were in the limelight during the pooja holidays when the entire traffic came to a grinding halt as hundreds of vehicles were trapped in the 9 km stretch on October 22. Political fronts including LDF and UDF have been on a campaign in the district for better connectivity to the district. The proposed tunnel road to Wayanad, starting from Anakkampoyil near Kodanchery in Kozhikode district to Kalladi near Meppadi in Wayanad district, and other alternate routes linking Wayanad with the planes, were in focus during the campaign.
Kozhikode District Collector Snehil Kumar Singh had ordered new traffic restrictions for huge transporting vehicles in the Wayanad Ghats road on all public holidays (3 pm to 9 pm) and on Fridays preceding the Second Saturday. The restriction would be also in place on all Mondays from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. The Ghat Road though known as the Wayanad Ghat Road, falls under the jurisdiction of the Kozhikode district collector.
During the time frame on the aforesaid days all huge transporting vehicles including tipper trucks with more than 6 wheels, transporting vehicles with more than 10 wheels, huge transporting vehicles and multi-axle vehicles will not be allowed to the Ghat Road, the release said.
The District Collector had imposed the order as the chairman of the District Disaster Management Authority. District Collector also ordered the Thamarasseery police to ensure a pool of experts including crane operators, mechanics, drivers of tugging vehicles and JCB operators to clear the traffic snarls occurring in the ghat roads due to accidents on a war footing basis. Orders are also given to the traffic police to slap heavy fines for illegal parking on the ghat road.
