TTD wants to make ghat road travel more safe, incident-free

Tirupati : TTD Executive Officer A V Dharma Reddy stressed on long-term plans and effective coordination among the TTD, police and district administration to prevent mishaps on the Tirumala ghat roads.

Stirred by the spurt in accidents involving private vehicles in which two pilgrims dead and the recent APSRTC electric bus mishap on the Tirumala ghat, TTD, the temple management, began a series of safety measures like construction of concrete retaining walls and acting tough on those ignoring safety norms while driving on the ghat roads.

As part of the measures on Friday, the EO held a meeting with Collector K Venkataramana Reddy, SP P Parameswara Reddy, top TTD officials and RTC authorities in his chamber at TTD Administrative building here on preventing mishaps on the ghat roads.

After in-depth discussion, the meeting resolved to take various steps to make ghat road travel more-safe. Accordingly, checkpoints to be set up in the first turning, Seventh Mile and Alipiri Gate on the down ghat road (Tirumala to Tirupati) and on the Upghat road (Tirupati to Tirumala) at Link Road, Natural Garuda Rock and Divyaramam and also take up construction of concrete retaining wall on both up and down ghat roads.

Imposing speed limit for the vehicles on ghat road and also install speed gun to keep a round-the-clock watch against the vehicles violating the speed limit for taking stringent action.

More importantly, the meet also took a decision on preparing a list of the vehicles that are to be restricted from plying on the ghat road, set up a separate units of ambulances and rescue teams which will be ready to plunge into action in case of any accidents to ensure rescue and shifting to hospitals without any delay to save lives and required treatments to the injured. Besides Ruia, the doctors and their team in BIRRD and SVIMS should also be ready to attend to emergency accident cases if any that takes place on ghat roads. Display boards and signs on the instruction and guidance to drivers will be put on the ghat roads at different points and wide publicity though pamphlets on the safety measures including speed limit, dos and don’ts for drivers, audios on the safety measure on ghat to be played in RTC buses for public awareness.

Steps to restrict overtaking by RTC buses will also be initiated.

In the meeting, TTD officials including JEOs Sada Bhargavi, Veerabrahmam, Chief Vigilance and Security Officer (CVSO) D Narasimha Kishore, FACAO Balaji, Chief Engineer Nageswara Rao, Engineering Advisor Ramachandra Reddy, SVIMS Director Dr Vengamma, BIRRD Special Officer Dr Reddeppa Reddy, Ruia Superintendent Dr Raviprabhu, Additional SP Tirumala Muniramaiah, RTC Regional Manager Chengal Reddy and In-charge RTO Ravindranath were present.

It may be noted here that Tirumala police also decided to bring awareness among drivers violating the safety norms like avoiding talking on mobiles while driving, taking selfies at vulnerable points and also avoiding overspeeding and overtaking.