Bhayandar: Despite functioning with a skeletal staff, the traffic control wing of the Thane (rural) police has collected a whopping Rs2.47 crore as fine from over 93,000 motorists for their involvement in an array of traffic-related offences.
As per official statistics, helmet-less riders topped the list of violators with 7,106 cases, followed by 3,584 and 393 people caught driving without seat belts and under the influence of alcohol respectively from Jan 1 to Dec 31, 2019.
While the traffic police fined 81,892 motorists and collected a total Rs 1.51 crore towards violations, including parking vehicles in no-parking spots, creating snarls, rash driving, jumping signals, over speeding and lack of mandated documents, the police also slapped challans on 11,515 errant auto-drivers and collected fines amounting to Rs 31.82 lakh.
This apart from recovering Rs 64.96 lakh from motorists entering the twin-city who had been earlier caught for offences in areas as far as Navi Mumbai and Palghar but had defaulted in coughing up fines under the One State, One e-Challan — an ambitious integrated traffic laws’ enforcement project.
“As per instructions given by IG Niket Kaushik and SP Dr Shivaji Rathod, we have been on an overdrive to install traffic sense in the minds of motorists,” said inspector (traffic), Anil Pawar.
Spread on 79.4 sq km. the twin-city’s population has crossed 14 lakhs, in addition to a floating populace averaging 3 lakh.
While the official number of personnel, right from the in-charge to constables, stands at 75, holidays and sick leave reduce the manpower by 30, thus limiting the actual strength of the onduty traffic cops to just 45.