Rs 2.96 crore fine collected from 61K traffic violators

PK Jaiswar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, January 21

The last year (2018) was quite good for the district police in terms of revenue generation for the state government. As many as 61,465 traffic violators were challaned in 2018, fetching a revenue worth Rs 2.96 crore, which is more than double as compared to that of 2017.

In 2017, the traffic police had challaned 56,864 persons and the revenue was Rs 1.24 crore.

While 2017 witnessed maximum challans for wrong parking, the traffic police remained liberal towards wrong parking this time. In 2017, over 16,200 persons were challaned for the offence while only 4,201 such slips were issued in 2018. Officials said that in 2017, there was a tow away facility available with the police. In 2018, the contract of the firm, responsible for towing away haphazardly parked vehicles, expired. It is yet to be renewed.

Last year, the police issued maximum challans to the violators for not wearing helmets which is more than double as compared to 2017. This was followed by traffic signal jumping and driving without licence. The police issued 12,857 challans for not wearing helmets, 9,739 for jumping red light and 8,567 for driving sans licence in 2018. In 2017, the figures were 5,551, 3,263 and 10,708, respectively.

With the traffic police equipped with speed radar guns, the number of challans for overspeeding witnessed a manifold jump in 2018 as 2,132 challans were issued. The figure in 2017 was a mere 438.

Nevertheless, the police went easy on drunk driving in 2018. Going through the data, it has been learnt that only 846 persons were punished for such an offence in 2018 while the number was 1,015 in 2017.

The year (2018) also witnessed installation of CCTV cameras in various parts of the city, including Civil Lines area. One of objectives of the same is to streamline the traffic and catch the traffic violators on the lines of Chandigarh. However, this hasn’t happened till now.

Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (traffic) Dilbagh Singh said the traffic police had a limited force and it was not easy to depute cops at each and every chowk (intersection) of the city. The traffic police also remained occupied due to frequent VIP and VVIP visits. People should also follow the traffic norms in letter and spirit for resolving the issues of regular traffic chaos in different parts of the city. Further, rampant encroachments also lead frequent traffic snarls in the holy city.