Police act tough on tipsy drivers

Drivers, who tend to take the wheel or drive a two-wheeler after having alcohol, need to be careful as the City Traffic Police have increased the enforcement.

The last fours months has seen a steep rise in number of cases booked and the police have plans to intensify it further.

In the last four months the police have booked as many as 12,600 cases for drink driving and have collected fines to the tune of over ₹ 1 crore .

Sources in the Traffic Police Department said from January to April about 12,600 cases were booked and the average per month has been around 3000 cases.

This is almost half of the total cases booked in 2017, said ACP (Traffic) Kinjarapu Prabhakar.

“In 2017 the total number of cases booked during the entire year was 28,570 and in the last four months we have achieved 12,600 cases and the fine that we collected was around ₹ 2 crore,” said the ACP.

The conviction rate has also increased drastically. In 2016 the total conviction was 45 and in 2017 it was 441. But in this year, in the last four months the total conviction was 356.

“We have increased the focus and formed a number of special teams. Unlike earlier days, when we were focussing on certain prime locations, we are now more dynamic and mobile. Our teams are moving from one place to another at a very short notice,” said ADCP (Traffic) M. Ramesh Kumar.

Tech savvy

The Traffic Police have also gone tech savvy. They are not only carrying more number of alcometers but the inspectors also assigned body cameras to record the proceedings of the checking, which stand as evidence in the court.

Apart from body cameras and alcometer, the teams are also equipped with blue-tooth printers and receipts can be given on the spot.

Sumit Bhattacharjee