The festive countdown has begun in the capital. So have the traffic jams. Days before Puja crowds swell, Kataka Road — one of Bhubaneswar’s busiest arteries — has slipped into a familiar, frustrating grind. Commuters say the stretch is already “shocking,” and they want the system fixed now, not after the first mandap lights go up.
The sharpest complaint is simple: the automated traffic signals meant to run key junctions are not working. At Kalpana Square, Laxmisagar Square and several other traffic posts, the self-operated system has gone dead. What was sold as a modern, machine-managed flow is back in human hands — traffic constables and appointed wardens waving vehicles through, hour after hour.
That gap between promise and pavement is now public. Commissionerate Traffic Police have long highlighted automated signals as part of the city’s traffic architecture. On Kataka Road this week, the picture is older and more manual: officers at the centre of the junction, wardens on the edges, and a line of vehicles stretching farther than the festival calendar would like.
The signals are only part of the story. Locals say wrong-route driving and unregulated vehicle movement are daily features on Kataka Road. The result is a jam that does not need a festival to appear. It arrives on ordinary weekdays. With Puja approaching, residents fear that “ordinary” will become unbearable.
Roadside mandaps add another layer of anxiety. Many pandals sit close to the carriageway. Once devotees gather, crowd control and free vehicle movement will have to happen in the same narrow space. Officials and residents alike worry that a large turnout this year could freeze the stretch if extra hands are not in place early.
Traffic Police, however, say they are not waiting for the first snarl of the season. Bhubaneswar ACP (Traffic) Umakant Pradhan said the force is already working to a pre-drawn festival plan. Volunteers and wardens have been posted at several points, and sources indicated that additional police will be deployed near roadside mandaps specifically for crowd control.
That assurance will be tested where it always is in Bhubaneswar: at Kalpana, Laxmisagar and the other posts where the lights have gone dark. Drivers are already paying the price in time and tempers. The complaint is not only that the automated system failed. It is that the failure has lasted long enough to feel normal — and Puja is not a season that forgives “normal” jams.
For now, the city’s most important festive corridor is being run by hand. The question hanging over Kataka Road is whether that will be enough when the crowds arrive.
