Traffic challans go up but fail to curb road accidents

GURGAON: Despite the fact that the traffic police have issued two and a half times more number of challans this year as compared to the corresponding period last year, there has been no slowdown in the cases of accidental deaths in Gurgaon.
In fact, official data reveals that deaths caused by road accidents have gone up by seven percent this year. According to official data, a total of 246 people have lost their lives in road accidents till July 31 this year, while 229 accidental deaths had occurred last year during the same period of time.
A significant increase in the number of accidental deaths involving pedestrians has been found to be a major cause for this rise. As compared to last year, when 152 pedestrians had been killed in accidents, over 189 pedestrians have lost their lives in accidents this year. Interestingly, the total number of road accidents has decreased this year.
This year, only 563 road accidents have been reported in the city as against last year's 594 accidents. Police commissioner S S Deswal blamed the poor condition of roads and the absence of road infrastructures like foot overbridges (FOBs), subways and footpaths for the present scenario.
Deswal said, "Every agency has a role and responsibility to play. We have been continuously writing to the civic agencies and the NHAI highlighting these issues." This year, more challans have been issued to the violators till July 31 as compared to the whole of last year and the revenue generated is also almost double.
This year till July 31, a total of 1,84,380 challans have been issued as compared to 76,376 challans issued last year during the corresponding period. The revenue collected this year is Rs 3,25,25, 500 while last year it was Rs 1,65,07,700.
Deswal said he had written to the state government for the utilization of half the amount of money collected through challans for traffic education and improving the conditions of roads.
In another major move, the city police have demanded an additional manpower of 1,100 for manning the traffic junctions after conducting a survey of the entire city. The demand has been sent to the state government and the Gurgaon police are also submitting a reply before the Punjab and Haryana high court regarding this. Once this demand has been met, the traffic manpower will increase to 1,500.