The UT administration has decided to create a road-safety fund so that it can have money to take steps for preventing accidents.
On the pattern of other states, including Punjab, Chandigarh will divert 50percent of the amount it collects from traffic violations towards the fund. The monel will be used by Chandigarh Police for road-safety measures. As per the proposal, the administration’s move has come in accordance with Supreme Court guidelines of 2016.
Revenue generated from fines paid by violators of traffic rules is not used in the city at present. The administration draws and deposits the entire money in the Consolidated Fund of India. Now, for forming the fund, the administration will have to take permission of the Union government.
In 2017, Chandigarh traffic police collected Rs 4.59 crore by issuing 1.3 lakh challans and impounding 15,446 vehicles. This year till April, traffic cops gathered Rs 2.19 crore by issuing 50,311 challans and impounding 6,188 vehicles. The compounding amount is expected to go up in near future as the police plan to increase penalties for different violations. The Punjab and Haryana high court has also directed police to go stringent on traffic violators and penalise them heavily.
In Chandigarh, there has been a rise in the number of deaths in road accidents. Around 750 people died in road accidents in last five years. In all, 107 people were killed last year. In 2016, 151 people were killed, while 129 died in 2015.
According to sources, the fund will be used to upgrade existing road infrastructure.
As present, local police are not equipped with sufficient e-surveillance systems. As per official data, 100 cameras were installed at 20 junctions in 2010. Of these, a large number do not work. To make matters worse, the footage of functional cameras is of poor quality and not good enough for investigation purpose. Due to limited storage capacity, footage is automatically deleted after nine days.
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Date: June 09, 2018