The Chandigarh Engineering Department is not in favour of building speed breakers at nearly 38 locations as recommended by the UT Forest and Wildlife Department to prevent deaths of animals due to accidents on the city roads.
Following the directions of Punjab and Haryana High Court last year, the UT Forest and Wildlife Department had identified 38 locations where animals suffered injuries due to accidents across the city.
While animal-crossing signboards have been put up at all such locations to caution people, the Forest and Wildlife Department had requested the UT Engineering Department to build speed breakers at these locations to slow down the speeding vehicles and prevent accident of animals.
Besides, the UT Traffic Police was requested to ensure monitoring of speed limit at such junctions.
Notably, the High Court directions had come after the death of a Sambar in a road accident at Sector 3/4/9/10 roundabout in November last year. The HC had taken suo motu cognizance on fatal lapses in ensuring the safety of animals.
While talking to The Pioneer, Mukesh Anand, UT Chief Engineer-cum-Special Secretary, Engineering said that the Engineering Department is not in favor of building speed breakers at all such junctions.
Animal-crossing signboards have already been put up to caution people but building speed-breakers at all such identified junctions would not be feasible, he added.
Chandigarh has been witnessing increase in cases of accidents of wild animals, who enter the city from various protected areas here. Such accidents have been reported near Rock Garden, Sukhna Lake, Botanical Garden, Dadumajra, near Nature Interpretation Centre (Sukhna Lake) among other areas in the city.
As per the data with the UT Forest and Wildlife Department, more than 40 animals have been killed on the city roads in the past one year. The fatalities included Nilgai, Sambars, Peacocks, Porcupines among other animals.
When contacted, Dr Abdul Qayum, Deputy Conservator of Forests, Chandigarh said, “We had written to the UT Engineering Department to build speed breakers at about 38 locations in the interest of wildlife safety. It’s been more than a month when the request was sent to them in this regard but no communiqué has been received from them in this regard.”
“As per the study conducted by the Department, fatal accidents of wild animals have happened at these locations and speed monitoring is required to be done.
