The Munshi Pulia Puzzle

Here is a puzzle set up by the traffic police of Lucknow.  As I do not have access to a helicopter for an aerial photograph, I have represented the puzzle diagrammatically.

For those who are not familiar with Lucknow, Munshi Pulia is a very busy road intersection on the Ring Road with a huge circle and lots of traffic.  The traffic also includes heavy vehicles passing through Lucknow.  There are no traffic signals at the chauraha.

The police have erected a barrier as shown in the diagram.  Because of it the traffic flows in crazy ways.  I have shown the patterns in the diagram.  I decided against drawing the remaining flow lines as the diagram was getting too crowded.

When you are at or near the point marked "battlefield", you tend to get disoriented as traffic seems to be coming towards you from all sides except from up above and down under.  You draw a huge sigh of relief every time you are able to safely make it to your chosen road on the other side of the intersection.

Traffic police normally doesn't intervene.  I think they are convinced of the futility of doing so.

Some friends have guessed that the barrier has been erected to force the traffic coming in from the road at the bottom of the drawing and turning right to go around the circle.  Do you agree?

The question posed to you, dear readers, is this - is it possible that there could be some other deep unfathomable reason for the police to have done what they have?  And has it resolved the traffic problems or magnified them?  It might help if you stood at or slowly walked past the "battle point" while deliberating.  Do I hear you saying that it will be dangerous to do so?  Pedestrians routinely do that!