Commissioner of Police Sanjay Pandey on Sunday said that in the last ten days of his tenure, the Mumbai Traffic Police will be “going all out” against traffic offenders. The announcement was made by the top cop during his weekly Facebook Live session on Sunday afternoon.
Traffic management has been one of Pandey’s areas of focus ever since he took over as the city’s police chief earlier this year. Under this direction, the Traffic Police last month made it mandatory for pillion riders to wear helmets, and thousands of people are being penalised on a daily basis ever since. Pandey is due to retire towards the end of the month.
“I am instructing the Traffic department to charge and fine anyone in violation of traffic rules, be it wrong side driving, honking, speeding, signal jumping and not wearing helmets. I myself stay on the first floor and keep hearing honking, which makes it difficult to sleep. Offences like wrong wide driving and signal jumping are committed even in front of me. I can not get out of my car and take action but I see everything,” said Pandey.
He went on to say that he hoped this would last and that his successor also focuses on these issues, and added that some radical measures were needed if the city needed to “breathe and survive.”
“Nothing in the city can improve till we take some very very hard decisions. There has to be a limit on the sale of cars in an area where the density of vehicles is high. If you don’t have parking space, you should not be allowed to buy a car. You can travel by public transport, and Mumbai has one of the best public transport infrastructures. I myself will be travelling by train from July 1 and I love our trains,” said Pandey.