If the city riders continue to flout rule of the road as they do now, they will end up paying five times more than the amount paid last year.
After the Union cabinet’s green signal to manifold increase in penalties for traffic offenders, it is likely that the total amount of fines collected in the city will now touch a whopping Rs50 crore figure this year. That is, if the city riders continue to flout rule of the road as they do now, they will end up paying five times more than the amount paid last year.
In 2011, traffic department of Ahmedabad collected Rs9.31 crore as penalty from all traffic offenders. During the year, traffic cops registered more than 13.70 lakh cases against the rule breakers and collected Rs9.31 crores from them.
This picture arises when the city dwellers are allowed to go by paying a minimum of Rs50 to a maximum of Rs100 as penalty for most of the violations on city roads. According to the current norm, city traffic cops fine Rs50 to Rs100 for violations like not wearing helmets, wrong parking, not wearing seat belts, not possessing PUC or license, jumping signals or rash driving.
In a bid to tighten the noose around habitual traffic offenders, the Cabinet cleared the manifold increase in penalties by approving the changes to be incorporated in the amendment to the Motor Vehicle Act, which is likely to be introduced in the forthcoming Budget session of Parliament. As a result, city dwellers have to cough up more to break the traffic rules in coming days, which will prove to be cash cow for the traffic department.
A rough estimate suggests that the new norms will increase the amount of penalty in Ahmedabad five times, that is from Rs9.31 crore in 2011 to a whopping Rs50 crore in 2012. The amendments which received a green signal include fine for jumping red light, which is to be increased from Rs100 to Rs100-500 for first offence and from Rs300 to Rs300-1,500.
For over-speeding, it has been proposed to increase the fine from Rs400 to Rs400-1,000 for first offence, and from Rs1,000 to Rs2,000-5,000 for the second. For dangerous driving, the fine has been raised to Rs2,000-5,000. Apart from the usual violations, the new norms also propose to collect fine of Rs500 from those caught talking on mobile phone, reading or sending messages via phone or talking on phone even using hands-free kit.
According to the figures provided by the traffic department, majority of the penalty were collected from four kinds of offences namely-wrong parking, dangerous driving, not wearing helmet and not wearing seatbelts while driving. City traffic cops collected more than Rs4 crore for the first two offences, while other two offences attracted a fine of Rs3 crore.
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