Making every second count

Karuna Sagar, IPS, the Additional Commissioner of Police (traffic), Chennai, knows the value of time, down to each life-saving second. Last week, his team pulled off the near-impossible task of transporting a heart for transplant from the Government General Hospital, near Central Railway Station, to the Fortis Malar Hospitals in Adyar 12km away in under 14 minutes, beating peak-hour evening traffic. They accomplished this by creating a green corridor — a red light-free zone — to ensure that no time was wasted in the commute that would have ordinarily taken at least 45 minutes. The transplant took place almost immediately, and the heart was alive and beating inside the recipient within three hours.

“Our plan of action was set into place by about 9am on the day of the operation, thanks to our deputy commissioner Sivanandan. Two officers, who acted as touch-points for all communications, were posted at the donor and the recipient hospitals,” says Sagar. “A pilot vehicle accompanying the ambulance constantly alerted the control tower and the policemen manning the 12 traffic junctions that fell along the ambulance’s route.”

The traffic policeman’s role was vital to the operation as it was his responsibility to block all the other traffic and give the ambulance the right of way (an all-clear or green signal) at each junction. Except for one stretch where the ambulance had to traverse the path of incoming traffic, it was smooth sailing all the way.

For Sagar, it was just another day in the life of a law enforcer. Having joined the IPS in 1991, he was driven by the belief that “the police was, and is the best means of delivering social justice.” Belonging to Bihar, he has, over the years, led several different divisions in the police force, such as the Crime Branch (CID) and the Armed Police. Before being posted in Chennai to head the traffic wing, he was the Commissioner of Tirunelveli.

Talking about the transportation of organs for transplant, Sagar says, “We pulled this off because of the clockwork precision with which the city traffic police and the hospital staff coordinated the proceedings. Operations of this magnitude have become second nature to us as we have been creating green corridors almost every month. We had five instances in the last six months. Since 2010, we have facilitated about 14 such operations in Malar Hospital alone. Cadaver transplantation is a serious issue, and it surprises me that the creation of red-light-free zones for medical emergencies is almost non-existent in other cities. The statistics are appalling — the number of deaths in a city exceeds the number of blind people (yet transplants are few).” What this means is that a perfectly healthy pair of eyes (or any organ, for that matter) that could have been harvested and donated to a recipient often fails to reach him or her in the hour of need.

But there’s no time to lament as Sagar’s day starts at 8am, long before rush-hour traffic picks up in Chennai. He says, “Every morning, I am on the road with senior and junior officers, stationed at arterial stretches across the city. Our job is to ensure the smooth flow of traffic during these jam-packed hours. The control room warns us if there’s an accident or a breakdown of an MTC (Metropolitan Transport Corporation) bus or any other such incident.” Sagar also points out that the traffic signals at important junctions in the city are standalone, but they are manually controlled by policemen during peak hours (8-11am and 5-9pm) to ensure uniform flow.

Dealing with traffic violations and reviewing accident statistics constitute a substantial part of Sagar’s schedule. “My focus is on cases concerning over-speeding, double-pillion riding, rash and drunken driving, and fancy number plates. Since I took charge of the traffic division in December 2013, we have also done several seatbelt awareness campaigns for the public. And it’s heartening to see the high level of compliance among motorists in Chennai with regard to this aspect of road safety. Even taxi drivers now pay heed to our campaigns. Similarly, I have noticed that most major pubs in the city have started offering a driver-on-call service, which is displayed prominently as a notice on their premises.”

Recently entrusted with the profile of additional commissioner, law and order, as well, Sagar has his work cut out. Nevertheless, he is also eagerly awaiting the completion of work on the Chennai Metro Rail, which he hopes would significantly shift the burden of traffic off the roads.

Like most of us, the one thing Sagar looks forward to at the end of a long day at work, is spending time at home with his family. A voracious reader with a “decent library” of his own, he follows but a single inviolable rule after hours — not answering any phone calls from known numbers after 9pm. He would rather not lend a ear to someone caught for a traffic violation, looking for an easy way out.

And even when Sagar calls it a day, book in hand, there’s always the trusted walkie-talkie by his side, cackling with static-laden updates from his taskforce.

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