Bhubaneswar: The dillydallying attitude of the public works department to put traffic regulations in place at major city junctions and on stretches along national and state highways has put the lives of commuters at risk.

The works department had in December last year directed its divisions to identify sites, including junctions and black spot zones, where road safety measures had not been implemented properly.

The department had subsequently issued a guideline suggesting measures and ways to implement the road safety measures. The guideline had advised identification of vulnerable sites, installation of signage, rumblers, speed breakers and stop signs to slow down the approaching vehicles.

A survey was also scheduled to spot these vulnerable places. However, the executive engineers of various divisions are yet to comply with the order. This lackadaisical of the engineers often put senior officials of the department in an embarrassing situation at high-level meetings.

In a reminder to executive engineers, chief engineer roads Om Prakash Patel said that at a recent road safety review meet the chief secretary expressed his displeasure regarding non-compliance at the ground level. The chief secretary wanted the process to be done in a week's time.

"It is to remind again that several reminders were issued from this office to complete the adequate traffic calming measures like fixing of signboards, construction of rumble strips on minor arm of junctions, marking as per IRC codes on road junctions on the NHs, SHs and other required places," Patel wrote to the engineers.

The absence of these measures has made commuters vulnerable at places including Rasulgarh Square, Vani Vihar Square, Acharya Vihar Square, Jayadev Vihar Square and Fire Station Square along National Highway No. 5. The situation is no different at junctions on the Puri-Cuttack state highway.

"Due to the absence of safety measures, major and minor accidents are a regular affair on national and state highways. Several vehicles tried to speed away and trigger mishaps. If rumble strips are installed, vehicles would be forced to slow down," said Bikaram Nayak, a shopkeeper near Rasulgarh Square.

Implementation of road safety measures is the responsibility of the five divisions of the works department. Each of these divisions has an executive engineer as it head.

An executive engineer of one of the divisions said on condition of anonymity that they had done the survey and were compiling the data.

"We will submit the list with action taken report to the chief engineer by the end of this month," he said.