In an exclusive interview with khohyderabad.com, he expressed his anguish about the complexities involved in the road and traffic management in the city.

Excerpts from the interview:

Q. What is the reason for the increase in the number of road accidents in the city?
A. They are bound to be on the rise, with this volume of traffic. Thank god the fatality rate has come down, though the injuries sustained is also a matter of concern. But, my priority now is to decongest the roads.

Q. How are you planning to do that?
A. By increasing the width of the roads and introducing some kind of a lane system, where the slow moving vehicles are segregated from the fast moving vehicles. This requires a good system of road engineering, which will take some time to get implemented.

Q. But don’t you think that it will be too lengthy a process to be implemented in a city like Hyderabad?
A. You are right, for this the road user has to be given an awareness about the social responsibilities. And the major road users in Hyderabad are the Auto users, RTC buses and the four wheelers. There are 70,000 - 80,000 autos in the city. Tell me why do we require so many autos. There is an indiscriminate dumping of these vehicles into the city. First of all that has to be regulated and next, the road user has to be made socially responsible.

Q. Educating the auto drivers in the city, it is a huge task, right?
A. Yes, this is the biggest challenge I have ahead of me. First of all look at the socio-economic background of these people. Majority of the auto drivers in the city are Lumpers. For a single auto there will be more than 2 - 3 drivers. There is no question of accountability, there is no question of belonging, there is no question of identifying him in the locality or even within the city. He just wants to make money by hook or crook. Now, this is a major task, and is not as simple as it seems to be.

Q. What about the faulty and tampered meters and the tendency of the auto drivers denying for short distances
A. Out of the 80,000 odd autos in the city, more than 80 % of them have tampered meters. Not to stop there, they demand more, they refuse to go for short distances and somehow they want to make money. Now, how to educate them. My infrastructure is very limited. Though, I have been talking to them...addressing them...you say in Telugu ...sama, dana, bheda, dandopayam...we were very ruthless for some time, with the help of legal Meterology we seized some vehicles. But that does not solve the problem. Tell me, what more can the Traffic Police do. I have been urging the Legal Meterology and the RTA to conduct raids and check this issue, but the more I shout, the less I got responses.

Q. We had these Seven Seater Autos, what happened to that issue?
A. Let us, just go to Mehdipatnam, or Chandrayangutta or any other center and see how they run. They just come on to the road and with a couple of passengers already in, they start soliciting. They just do not bother about the other commuters on the road. They enter the bus bays and create congestion for the buses as well.

Q. What about the menace of RTC buses in the city ?
A. RTC is the next major road user in the city. It is the biggest public transport in the city after autos. Presently they are in a position of management of finances, profitability and popularity. The number of buses which are coming on to the roads have also increased. Simultaneously, they developed this slogan "Ekkada cheyye yettute akkada aapeyyali"(Stop the bus wherever you ask them to). But they just do not bother (with a lot of stress in the speech) how the drivers should use the road.

Q. Out of the number of rules / signals broken, RTC bus drivers stand in the forefront I think...
A. Yes, RTC bus drivers also contribute to this. When there is a bus stop, you should move to the extreme left or enter into the bus bay and sometimes they don’t even stop in the bus stops, above all they all come at a time...six buses come in a row. I have been challaning them also.

Q. Who is the next trouble maker?
A. Then next comes the two wheelers. There are a huge number of two wheelers in the city. Most of the accidents happen because of them. They just wriggle into some pass and try to take left, right and somehow they come onto the front and in the process get into accidents.

Q. What remedies do you suggest to improve the condition of traffic in the city?
A. We proudly say that, Hyderabad is a very good market for two wheelers and other automobiles. The vehicles are just dumped into the market. My question is what is the necessity of these many number of vehicles. It does not happen in any other country. For instance in a country like Singapore, a single occupant cannot come on to the road. There should be a minimum of 4 - 5 people in a car. This is called as Car Pooling.

And on a particular day, cars with certain registration numbers cannot come on to the road. Thus they are restricting the number of vehicles that ply on the roads. But, what are we doing...on the other hand we are dumping the vehicles onto the roads. I have been talking to people at the helm, but they say...no no...it is a soft act and would be difficult to follow in our conditions. The only solution is to restrict the number of vehicles that are coming on to the road.

Q. For this you need the help of other departments as well...
A. Yes, very right...other departments also have to be a lot more proactive. The MCH (Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad) gives me the roads and they are the people who give me signals and road dividers. But, once again when it comes to the traffic maintenance, the traffic police are responsible.

Nowhere in the world the traffic police paints the roads for zebra crossings and line dividers. It is done by the local Municipality or the local administrative body. But we do that here in Hyderabad, because ultimately it is our responsibility to ensure the smooth flow of the traffic.

Q. Where do you get the funds from?
A. Traffic Police is blamed for collecting of challans and filling their kitties. It is true that on an average we collect more than Rs 1 lakh per day through challans. This makes somewhere around Rs 3 crores per year. But all the money goes into the government treasury. We do not get anything. Once again we have to request for funds from the government for our activities.

Q. Are you planning anything to educate the young generation about traffic safety?
A. I have been talking to school children in this regard. However, it is a very futuristic...long-term plan. It might take another 5 - 10 years for that to actually come into practice. That we are doing already and we have a very good response for this. But in the present circumstances, I do not have the luxury to wait for such long time. Simultaneously I have to educate the present lot as well.