Cops record 2.86L traffic violations from Jan 2017-Oct 2018

Nagpur: Over 2.86 lakh traffic violations were recorded through CCTV cameras in 22 months from January 1 last year to October this year. The DCP (Traffic) office had sent challans to over 1.03 lakh violators. It was revealed through an affidavit filed by divisional commissioner Sanjeev Kumar in Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court on Tuesday.
Giving information about November 12 meeting for resolving traffic problems in the city, Kumar informed that was attended by top officials from all government agencies like Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), police department, divisional commissioner’s office, regional Transport Office (RTO), Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT), Smart City project, dairy development officer, and members from bus and truckers unions.

The meeting was conducted as per HC’s directives in the suo motu PIL (No. 5/2016) where it had taken cognisance of a fatal accident involving a 15 years-old boy, who dashed off against a middle aged lady, who suffered serious head injuries. HC had appointed Shreerang Bhandarkar as amicus curiae in the PIL. TOI had been reporting about rampant violations by the citizens in its series of reports, but only few of them were punished, while others remain scot-free.

Commissioner’s affidavit further mentioned that over 44,000 drunken driving cases were registered against the drivers from January 1, 2017, till October 31 this year. A proposal of cancelling driving licenses of 1,013 such drivers was sent to RTO, which cancelled about 35 of them so far.

Senior PI (Traffic) Jayesh Bhandarkar informed that those caught multiple times in drunken driving cases, were liable to pay fine as per court’s orders. However, their office lacked technology for detecting repeated offenders.

The RTO informed that since April 17 and March 2018, they had cancelled permits of 960 vehicles out of 1,865 cases referred by police. From April to October this year, 573 permits were cancelled from 1,256 cases.

The affidavit informed that about 66 coaching classes were found in the city, of which, 27 were having own parking arrangements, while nine shut down operations due to inadequate parking space. A joint team of NMC and RTO officials had earlier issued notices to 65 of them regarding parking space and imposed double fine on 20 located in various areas.

The traffic cops found out 127 colleges for lacking parking areas and lifted 75 vehicles which were obstructing the traffic in front of their premises, through its pick vans. About 150 e-challans were issued to violators.

Regarding rampant violation of traffic rules by the school/college students, the RTO informed that it had constituted flaying squads for the purpose. It checked 1,930 vehicles driven by the teenagers and found 96 vehicles below 50cc and 518 above 50CC flouting the norms. The authorities’ recovered Rs3.22 lakh towards fine from the errant drivers. Another 332 drivers were caught for not wearing helmets and other minor offences, and Rs62,000 fine was recovered from them.

The DCP (Traffic) office informed that it had conducted awareness campaigns in various schools and colleges to create awareness among the students. They booked 2,080 minors driving above 50cc vehicles and counselled them on threats to theirs and others lives. The NMC on other hand took affidavits from the 9,042 parents that they would be responsible if their kids flouted traffic rules or drive high capacity vehicles.

On the contentious issue of bus parking at Mor Bhavan, coming under Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC), its divisional manager informed that there were no plans to increase frequency of their buses from the spot, as it would lead to severe traffic problems at the Variety and Zansi Rani squares. Currently, the Mor Bhavan has three platforms for MSRTC and eight for NMC buses. The ST buses conducts 770 ferries while NMC vehicles ply for over 800 times from the spot. If buses for places like Chandrapur, Wardha and Amravati are started from there, it would lead to over 1,000 ferries of ST buses.

(With inputs from Atharv Khubalkar)