indiatimes.com reports:
The longest pedestrian bridge in Delhi, known as the ITO Skywalk was thrown open to the public on October 15. The skywalk has four exit points and has been installed at the Pragati Maidan metro station. The idea behind building an over-bridge that costs around Rs 54.84 crore is to get people used to walkways and foot-over-bridges instead of direct roads.
However, people are giving the bridge a miss as they are so habitual to crossing the roads whenever they want to. The Delhi public works department has even thought of installing iron railings at road crossings to make sure people take the pedestrian routes
This, however, is not the only problem. Muscular, professional bouncers have been hired to keep the skywalk free of lovebirds. Well-built men, clad in black uniforms monitor the bridge from 8 am to 8 pm for any ‘touchy-feely’ couples.
The Hindustan Times reported that the bouncers have been hired with the primary job of keeping love birds at bay and to make sure that the skywalk doesn’t become a dating zone for the residents.
bouncer, Ravinder told HT that he had asked at least a hundred couples since morning to move elsewhere. They say that they have been hired because nobody listens to security guards these days. Apart from six bouncers, there are 15 guards at any given time.
40 CCTV cameras are also supervising the walkway constantly. The bouncers have been hired by the company who is in-charge of the bridge’s maintenance on a monthly salary of Rs 15,500.
Bansi Lal, an electrical engineer with Swadeshi Civil Infrastructure told HT, “Our company is also responsible for the maintenance of the skywalk. We have hired bouncers to ensure there are no thefts and no one restricts the smooth flow of pedestrians on the skywalk.”
However, the PWD denied any information of bouncers being hired for this role. Another bouncer agreed that a skywalk was an unusual place for them and on being asked if they found it wrong to ask couples to leave from a public place they said, We have no problem as long as they do not get touchy-feely and keep moving.”
However, commuter behaviour analysts have argued that countries worldwide were doing away with bridges and rather creating detours and elevated corridors for vehicles.
Source : indiatimes
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