A delegation of Vidarbha Taxpayers Association (VTA) led by its president Shrawan Kumar Malu met Amitesh Kumar, IAS – Commissioner of Police Nagpur; held discussion and submitted a memorandum on traffic issues of the region.
Shrawan Kumar Malu – VTA president appreciated usage of Speed Radar on highways which has definitely brought a check on the speed limits of the highway users; however, many times we have seen that a ticket is being issued even if the radar shows speed exceeding just 1 km/hr. There can always be calibration faults either in the vehicle’s speed gauge or even in the speed radar gun. A hundred percent accuracy in both the cases cannot be assured of and thus a margin of at least 10 km/hr over and above the prescribed speed limit should be permitted.
Tejinder Singh Renu – VTA secretary submitted that many traffic signals on a few city squares are kept off taking into consideration the low traffic. However we have noticed that the number of four wheelers increases dramatically during monsoons, which is quite understood as most like the two wheeler users shift to their four wheelers to avoid rains and also safety due to bad roads at a few roads. Hence it is highly recommended that traffic signals on squares with high traffic are kept ‘on’ and also monitored by traffic cops during monsoons to avoid chaotic situations on such key squares.
VTA also requested that many times it has been observed and can be confirmed from duty traffic cops on roads that mostly used cars brought cheap with Mumbai or Pune registration break traffic rules as we believe that such cars are bought cheap and never get registration done in RTO in users name. Hence the user is least bothered of the challans, including the electronic ones as it may go to the original owner who will certainly not pay. VTA suggested that a surprise drive should be carried by the traffic police wherein such cars are verified whether the owner or someone from his family is driving or not. If the vehicle is purchased second hand and the same is not transferred with prescribed days/months from the date of transaction; requisite challans with penalty should be imposed to discourage such activities.
VTA further requested that many important roads with heavy traffic especially below or adjacent to ongoing infrastructure projects are in bad conditions with many potholes. The Police Department may please get such roads inspected and write to the Administration for urgent repairs as such potholes cause accidents and the cases of accidents get registered, thereby adding to the list of accidents in that particular year, which we believe are avoidable if roads are repaired well in time. Hence the police department must write to NMC or Nagpur Metro for the needful and to tackle such issues at the earliest.
Nagpur CP Amitesh Kumar said, speed limit issue is settled worldwide that if you drive even a km/hr more than prescribed limit, we’ll issue challan. In the rest of the issues he said that we’ll discuss this internally and take appropriate steps.
Also present in the VTA delegation were Hemant Trivedi – Vice President, Amarjit Singh Chawla & Rajesh Kanungo – Joint Secretaries.