Ambulance First, Odisha CM’s Carcade Can Wait!

Bhubaneswar: Sunday saw Odisha enforcing the new MV Act 2019 after a six-month breather and the Regional Transports Offices issuing 1,650 e-challans for traffic violations on the first day.

Some rule breakers managed to dodge the deployed traffic cops while others expressed exasperation over the heft fines imposed on them.

While habitual offenders continued to flout traffic rules with impunity, it was heartening to see Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s carcade stopping at the Capital Hospital Square at around 7.45 pm to ensure smooth passage of an ambulance.

The ambulance with a critically-ill patient was moving from Sishu Bhawan Road to the Capital Hospital.

The carcade resumed its movement once the emergency vehicle had crossed the intersection.

On February 15, his carcade had stopped to facilitate movement of an ambulance on Jaydev Vihar-Nandankanan Road. The very day saw the Commissionerate Police launch a campaign, ‘Make Way For Ambulance’, which aimed at educating the masses on vacating a lane for the emergency vehicle.

The traffic police had come under a lot of criticism after a five-year-old boy died in an ambulance due to alleged traffic jams with the father of the deceased claiming that it took them one and a half to cover a distance of 13 km, on February 11. The CCTV footage of the route from Raj Bhawan Square to KIMS, however, showed that the vehicle had reached its destination within 22 minutes.