Chaguanas rolls out Christmas crime and traffic plan

Shas­tri Boodan 

With the fes­tive shop­ping sea­son ap­proach­ing, Ch­agua­nas au­thor­i­ties are rolling out a plan to tack­le crime, con­ges­tion and pave­ment ob­struc­tion.

Pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC), Bal­dath Ma­haraj, said the Cham­ber re­cent­ly met with May­or Faiq Mo­hammed, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rudolph Bhag­wan­deen, the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice and lo­cal coun­cil­lors amid con­cerns over ris­ing crime and wors­en­ing traf­fic.

“We are on a mis­sion to make the bor­ough safer and eas­i­er to move through, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the busiest shop­ping month,” Ma­haraj said.

A ze­ro-tol­er­ance crack­down on il­le­gal vend­ing will be the first en­force­ment mea­sure. Ma­haraj said the May­or as­sured that ven­dors op­er­at­ing in unau­tho­rised spaces will be re­moved to clear pave­ments, re­duce bot­tle­necks and elim­i­nate the cov­er of­ten used by pick­pock­ets. Le­git­i­mate ven­dors will be re­lo­cat­ed to a des­ig­nat­ed car park next to the old HCU build­ing.

Traf­fic is­sues al­so dom­i­nat­ed dis­cus­sions. Of­fi­cials are plan­ning an ur­gent re­view of the grid­lock along Mon­trose Main Road and the Price Plaza Round­about, hotspots that have frus­trat­ed res­i­dents and busi­ness­es for years, es­pe­cial­ly on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day evenings when shop­ping peaks.

With the bor­ough’s pop­u­la­tion hav­ing grown by 50 per­cent, Ma­haraj said the cur­rent road net­work can no longer cope. In the new year, the Cham­ber will push for meet­ings on long-over­due ad­di­tion­al over­pass­es to link both sides of the high­way.

Mean­while, po­lice have launched Fes­tive Shield, a high-vis­i­bil­i­ty op­er­a­tion run­ning from No­vem­ber 2025 through to Car­ni­val 2026. Shop­pers can ex­pect in­creased pa­trols, more blue light ve­hi­cles and more joint op­er­a­tions.

“Ch­agua­nas is not a place for crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty,” Ma­haraj said.

The CCIC is al­so sup­port­ing a dri­ve to re­pair and re­store non-op­er­a­tional po­lice ve­hi­cles to en­sure of­fi­cers have the fleet re­quired for rapid re­sponse and strong pa­trol cov­er­age.

Ma­haraj said the mea­sures are es­sen­tial and urged the pub­lic to co­op­er­ate as they come in­to ef­fect.