Thursday, October 15, 2009

Traffic treasure

I
llegal parking, biking without wearing helmets and non-renewal of vehicle documents might be giving traffic cops in Guwahati a hard time, but
they are royally adding to the state government's exchequer.

This may sound strange, but the traffic rule violations have been adding over Rs 7 lakh every month as fine to the treasury of Guwahati Traffic Police (GTP). According to data available with GTP, more than 100 cases are reported every day under the of Motor Vehicle Act. And, as the number of traffic norm violations cases increase by the day, so does the penalty amount.

GTP collected Rs 1.2 crore as fine during enforcement checking in 2008, which had been Rs 1.32 crore in the previous year. In 2006, the amount of fine collected was estimated to be Rs 66,40,210. Till June this year, GTP has already collected over Rs 50 lakh as fine in the city.

According to a senior traffic police official, the penalty amounts collected had even gone up to Rs 18 lakh in a few months during 2007 and 2008. "There has been a drastic increase in the number of traffic rule violations. This has led to the increase in the amount of fines collected by us. More than Rs 30,000 is collected as fine by our personnel from parts of the city. Most of the amount is collected from people who park their vehicles illegally in no-parking zones," the GTP official added.

The fast rising number of vehicles are choking city arteries and, coupled with a lack of proper parking space, is leading to a tremendous rise in traffic rule violations. A staggering 18 lakh Motor Vehicle Act violation cases has been reported by GTP since 2006.

In 2006, GTP reported that 50,331 cases have been registered while the number of cases went up to 71,157 in the next year. GTP registered 47,045 cases during 2008 and, till June in the current year, 18,000 cases have been registered.
The GTP official said the amount of fines has gone up after the traffic department tightened its noose against violators and pressed some recovery vans into service to check illegal parking.

"The fine amount went up as we accelerated our drive against the violations of traffic rules after the October 30 blast last year. The Guwahati Municipal Corporation has introduced 60 parking slots but illegal parking is still on," the official rued.

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