By Ayman Adly/Staff Reporter

An awareness campaign should be launched to instruct motorists to give way for ambulances, especially at traffic signals, the Central Municipal Council recommended yesterday.
At its bi-weekly regular session, the Council recommended that ambulance drivers at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) should be given special training on how to jump red light at intersections when transporting critical cases. Further, the number of highly equipped ambulances should be increased to address the rising demand of the population.
CMC also recommended that the Public Works Authorities (Ashghal) should speed up the process of equipping all traffic lights of the country with sensors that open automatically for ambulances carrying emergency cases within a tight time schedule.
It should also study the possibility of introducing gates at public roads that open automatically to pass ambulances and fire trucks in response to emergencies.
Ashghal already installed 30 such sensors in February last year and has recently added 50 more at the second phase, making the total number of the covered intersections 80. After accomplishing this phase, Ashghal will start a new phase to install the system at the remaining part of the intersections around the country.
CMC asked that the directory that includes all the names of the areas of the country and their details should be regularly updated and expanded at the Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning (MMUP) website. This would greatly help CMC members to know better the requirements and needs of their constituencies and address them.   
The council also reiterated yesterday its recommendations to increase the amount of housing loan given by Qatar Development Bank to Qataris to build their houses due to rising cost of construction and the various complaints that the amount - QR1.2mn - is no longer enough to build a modern and decent house.
The council further saw the need of government intervention to supervise the building processes of these houses and help locals to save them the manipulation by some contractors, who waste their time and resources.