Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 1: Though over 4,000 people have lost lives and nearly 37,000 got wounded in road accidents across the State during the past four years, the setting up of well-equipped Traffic Police/Check Posts has remained a distant dream till date as the Home Department doesn’t have the sufficient funds for the same and is awaiting Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) approval to the State Police Modernization Plan. Interestingly, in the highly vulnerable districts of Doda and Kishtwar, only 32 Traffic Police cops have been deployed to check violations on thousands of kilometer road network.
The inability to set-up well equipped Traffic Police/Check Posts, which is also one of the recommendations of the House Committee constituted to look into the causes of frequent road accidents on Batote-Kishtwar National Highway 1B, was expressed by the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, who is also Minister Incharge Home Department in reply to a question of CPM MLA, Mohd Yousaf Tarigami in the Legislative Assembly today.
According to the reply of the Chief Minister, 25,495 road accidents were reported in the State during the last four years in which 4,453 persons lost their lives and 36,920 others got injured. Out of these, 2401 accidents were reported in erstwhile Doda district in which 823 persons lost their lives and 3,700 persons were injured.
About the steps taken to implement the recommendation of the House Committee regarding setting up of Traffic Police Posts, well equipped with CCTV cameras and required communication system at suitable distances to curb all sorts of traffic violations including overloading in all passenger traffic vehicles, the Chief Minister said, “under the Modernization Plan 2012-13, the Police Headquarters has projected various equipment for an amount of Rs 421.50 lakh including 50 CCTV cameras at a cost of Rs 225 lakh before the Union Ministry of Home Affairs but the approval is still awaited”.
“However, the Traffic Police Department is making all out efforts to check traffic violations including overloading in vehicles and surprise/random checks are being carried out by special squads to exercise strict vigil on each route and vulnerable areas to serve deterrence for the violators”, he said, adding “all the DySPs/DTIs/SOs and other field staff have been directed to ensure effectiveness in checking the menace of traffic violations especially visible offences so as to minimize the road accidents and loss of human lives”.
About second recommendation regarding setting up of traffic check posts at one or two kilometers away from Batote, Doda and Kishtwar towns on Batote-Kishtwar National Highway 1B to verify and record the credentials/particulars of the drivers/conductors to prevent driving of vehicles by un-authorized and un-licensed drivers, the Government said, “due to paucity of sufficient manpower permanent traffic check posts could not be established so far. However, temporary check posts are being established from time to time for verifying and checking the credentials/particulars of drivers and conductors”.
The Chief Minister informed the House that one DySP Headquartered at Doda and one DTI (Inspector) each at Doda and Kishtwar have been deployed by the Traffic Wing for effective enforcement/regulation besides Traffic Assistance Posts comprising four cops each have also been established at Chakwa Bridge, Assar, Khillani, Doda, Prem Nagar, Thatri and Kishtwar for effective regulation of traffic.
He said that a proposal for creation of 431 additional posts in the Traffic Police in Phase-II has been referred to the Finance Department for consideration. However, the agreement of the Finance Department was awaited. “With the addition to these posts the overall traffic scenario will improve to a large extent”, Chief Minister added.
About recommendation of House Committee regarding highway patrolling by a special traffic squad, the Minister Incharge Home said that in order to ensure effective domination of National Highway and other accident prone areas, 10 highway patrol vehicles have been procured and allotted to subordinate units for checking the visible offences—overloading, roof topping, over-speeding, non-wearing of crash helmet, triple riding on two wheelers, use of mobile phones while driving, driving under the influence of liquor etc.
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