A division bench of the high court, comprising Chief Justice V.S. Sirpurkar and Justice Ashok Kumar Ganguly, on Friday constituted a five-member committee to inspect the traffic system on some important roads of the city. It will also ascertain the cause of the frequent traffic snarls.

The committee consists of four advocates of the high court ? Subroto Mookherjee, Tapas Bhanja, Arabinda Chatterjee and Debasish Kargupta ? and deputy commissioner of police (traffic) Arun Sharma. The committee will have to place its report on April 29. Deputy commissioner Sharma has been directed to be present in court on that day.

The committee will inspect the signalling system, traffic movement and encroachments on Brabourne Road, Strand Road, Netaji Subhas Road, Kali Krishna Tagore Street, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Kalakar Street, AJC Bose Road and Chittaranjan Avenue.

The court order was on a public interest litigation (PIL) moved by Subhas Dutta. He had blamed the signalling system, traffic police, the condition of the roads and encroachment by hawkers as reasons for the traffic jams.

If corrective measures are taken in this regard, he claimed, Rs 5,000 crore could be saved and life expectancy of Calcuttans could be extended by up to two years.

However, Chief Justice Sirpurkar, who arrived in the city a few days ago, had a different opinion.

?So far as roads in the southern parts of the city are concerned, the situation has changed remarkably. I came to the city after four years and noticed several developments in the traffic system. It took me only three minutes to cross the Howrah bridge when I was entering the city,? he said.

Justice Sirpurkar, however, conceded that he had no idea about the traffic system in northern part of the city.

Earlier, a division bench of the same court, on another PIL, had constituted a five-member committee to inspect the condition of the roads.