Siliguri traffic management is set for a post-festival clearance drive, with Bengal tourism minister and Siliguri MLA Shankar Ghosh directing Puja organisers to remove banners, posters and temporary structures from the city’s main thoroughfares within a week. The move is intended to clear roads for commuters and improve traffic movement after the festive season.
Ghosh issued the direction while inspecting Safdar Hashmi Chowk, Hill Cart Road, Sevoke More and areas around Bidhan Road as part of a city beautification drive. He said all banners, posters and temporary structures associated with the celebrations would have to be removed within the stipulated period.
The minister also called for action against encroachments and said street vendors would be monitored. He said the administration was not taking aggressive measures immediately, but indicated that the instructions would be enforced once the festive season ended. The directions place temporary festival infrastructure, roadside commercial activity and traffic management within the same civic enforcement exercise.
During the inspection, Ghosh also raised concerns about arrangements for the immersion of Durga idols on the banks of the Mahananda. He said several vehicles carrying idols were not properly maintained or were overloaded. Civic employees, he added, had to intervene because some drivers were not in a condition to drive safely.
Ghosh said officials present at the immersion site had recorded the organisers involved in the irregularities and that they would be held accountable. He also said he would hold a meeting with the city’s Puja organisers by January next year to provide government guidelines for conducting the following year’s Durga Puja in a more organised manner.
Road safety was another part of the measures outlined by the minister. He warned that action would be taken against reckless driving, which he said often turns fatal, and announced a proposed response to minors riding two-wheelers. Parents would initially be counselled if their minor children were found riding two-wheelers, while vehicles would be seized if the violation was repeated. Campaigns would also be conducted in schools, he said.
The administration is also working to identify additional parking spaces and review bus stands as part of an effort to reduce congestion across Siliguri. Ghosh said the traffic department of the Siliguri police commissionerate would conduct a survey for this purpose. The survey is expected to inform the search for parking capacity and the review of bus-stand arrangements, although no locations or implementation timeline were specified in the announcement.
The clearance direction comes as the city begins addressing the temporary changes to road space created during the Puja period. Its immediate test will be whether organisers remove structures within the one-week deadline and whether the proposed monitoring of encroachments, vendors, parking areas and bus stands results in measurable changes to traffic movement. The minister’s planned meeting with Puja organisers and the traffic department’s survey are the next stated steps.
