The highway patrol forces will now get special powers to take preventive and punitive action against motorists found violating traffic rules on the State and national highways in Maharashtra.
The Home Department will soon make necessary changes in existing regulations to empower 209 officers working under the Additional Director General (Traffic) for enforcing laws. The special forces for traffic management of highways have 2,442 personnel on 24-hour duty to deal with any emergency, but do not have penal or punitive powers, said officials.
Senior officials said the decision to hand over powers was taken after the Supreme Court-appointed Committee on Road Safety pointed out that the forces are now only acting as the first point of contact. “It appears that the special forces act only as first respondents and do not have powers to take preventive measures such as enforcement of traffic laws,” the committee’s latest report on State’s readiness in road safety and preventive measures noted.
The committee had directed Maharashtra to make the necessary changes in the law by the end of April 2019, and notify to the panel about it. Home Department officials said the present strength of the forces is adequate not only for traffic management but also for taking preventive measures on national and State highways. “The numbers we have are enough to enforce even penal provisions, necessary in the wake of large number of accidents on highways. This is true of the State and national highways,” said a senior official of the Home Department.
As part of the initiative to reduce highway fatalities, the State government has already introduced a new Road Safety Policy, which has tasked forces and officials with bringing road fatalities down to 25% of the current 13,000 deaths reported annually.
According to the Road Accidents in India-2017 report prepared by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, four cities — Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Nagpur — feature in the top 50. In Mumbai, 3,160 accidents occurred in 2017, of which 467 were fatal, and 2,603 were injury accidents.
As many as 490 people died in these accidents, while 3,287 were injured. In Pune, of the 1,508 accidents, 360 were fatal and 966 were injury accidents.