The Hindu

MANGALORE, Mar 23: A traffic signal at Bejai Junction, opposite KSRTC bus stand, is likely to be operational by this month-end.

The Bejai Junction is an important junction in the city as, according to a KSRTC official, about 640 KSRTC buses pass through it daily. In addition, private vehicles and other city buses such as route numbers 15 and 19 and those destined to Bajpe and Kateel, also pass through this junction. As a mall with four cinema houses is located in the vicinity of the junction, the traffic snarls there increase enormously during weekends. The traffic signal was installed at the junction a few days ago. It is yet to be commissioned.

“This signal has been donated by a public sector undertaking (PSU). We will commission it by this month-end, after Mangalore City Corporation completes laying inter-locks at the centre,” a traffic police official, who did not want his name to be mentioned, said.

He said that the PSU would also donate a traffic umbrella for the policeman at the junction.

An assistant executive engineer of the corporation said that the inter-locks would be laid by Monday.

The engineer said that three roads, one each from Lalbagh, Kuntikana and Bejai Church, joined at this junction. Of them, the road from Bejai Church, except for a small stretch opposite KSRTC bus stand, had been upgraded as four-lane concrete road a year ago. A stretch on the Kuntikana road that joined at the junction had also been concreted simultaneously. The Lalbagh road had been developed into a four-lane concrete one recently. “Work is under way for laying the median on Lalbagh road,” he said.

The official said that traffic signals at the Karvali Junction and Kankanady Circle would be installed after the concreting of the roads there.