The occurrence of traffic jams and red light jumping which have become an unfortunate identity of roads in the national capital, is likely to improve vastly with the Delhi traffic police starting to fight these perennial problems through multiple ways and bringing information technology to tackle them.
In the coming few weeks, the Delhi Traffic Police (DTP) department is going to launch a mobile based app through which the citizens of Delhi would be able to share information, pictures and videos of traffic violation directly to the DTP. The DTP after analysing the complaints will take action within 24 hours. Apart from that, a hi-tech radar guided state-of-the-art system that will automatically detect red light signal violation and speed violation detection, is going to be installed at 24 major intersections of the city within two months. Similarly, the DTP is pushing for more use of body-worn cameras that will not only record the offense and the offender, but will also bring in transparency in the way DTP personnel function on the ground.
Special Commissioner of Delhi Traffic Police, Ajay Kashyap, who has been at the helm for less than 7 months, in close coordination with the office of Delhi LG, Anil Baijal and Delhi Police commissioner Amulya Patnaik, is pushing for these changes, which he feel will greatly improve the traffic woes in the national capital.
“We want to empower the citizens and hence we are developing this mobile app, which is in its final stage. A common man, through this app and his mobile phone, will send us the picture or the video of the traffic violation and after we have verified it, without revealing his or her identity, we will prosecute the offender. So you can just imagine the scenario where lakhs of people are sending us instances of traffic violations. This will, gradually, greatly improve the traffic discipline on the streets. The fear of prosecution needs to be there. We will also reward those individuals who submit the maximum number of violations as this will encourage more and more individuals to join hand with us towards this objective. Similarly, we are installing a system of hi-tech radar guided cameras all over the city that will record traffic violations and will capture the details of the vehicle, the details of the violation after which we will issue the challan within 24 hours.” Kashyap, who assumed the vital position in November last year, told The Sunday Guardian.
According to him, when he took over, he constituted six task forces headed by the DCPs of the six traffic ranges, who started working in close coordination with him and the LG after which 77 congestion points of the capital were identified. “During the same time period last year (January to April), the average prosecution was 7,506, now, it is 17,269.
The red light prosecution has increased by 60 %. The fatal accidents that took place during this time period was 573, which has come down to 455. The number of deaths has come down from 589 to 458. We are making a dent, but it is not enough.
The loss of even one life due to accident is not acceptable to me or my men. Considering the resource crunch we have (less than 5,000 traffic cops are there to man the entire population of Delhi and close to one crore vehicles that ply on the streets of Delhi), adopting new technology is the only way ahead and that is what I am trying to do,” Kashyap said.
Responding to allegations that the traffic personnel indulge in corrupt practices, Kashyap said it was the duty of the senior officers to make sure that corruption is not allowed. “I have dismissed four traffic personnel in two cases,” Kashyap said.