Ludhiana: RTA cracks the whip on traffic violators, slaps Rs 1.47-crore fine

Tribune News Service

Nitin Jain

Ludhiana October 4

The Regional Transport Authority (RTA) has cracked the whip on violators of the traffic rules and has slapped a fine of whopping Rs 1.47 crore on them in Ludhiana district, officials have said.

Spearheading the sustained challaning drive, RTA Secretary, Dr Poonam Preet Kaur, has challaned at least 594 vehicles, mostly heavy and including school buses, for various violations of the norms during the past eight months.

With this, Ludhiana has topped the state with the maximum number of challans and imposition of fine by the RTA.

The development assumes significance as Ludhiana had earned the dubious distinction of being the most fatal district with maximum road accident deaths in the state during the past three years.

Dr Poonam told The Tribune, here on Wednesday that ever since she took over the charge of the RTA Secretary in Ludhiana on January 30, she had been receiving numerous complaints of gross traffic violations, endangering the lives of commuters and passengers, especially schoolchildren travelling in the school buses.

Taking serious note of the matter, she launched a special campaign to aware vehicle drivers about the traffic rules but those who failed to pay heed to the repeated warnings were challaned under the provisions of the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019. “Challaning is a penal action. It is the last resort taken to save precious lives,” she said.

The RTA Secretary leads the challaning drive as early as 4 am and as late as 12 midnight. “It is aimed at catching the early morning and late night violators, who think that no one would be on roads at the odd hours to check their violations,” she reasoned.

Further intensifying the ongoing drive recently, Dr Poonam created a record of sorts by slapping an all-time high fine of Rs 59,18,100 on 218 violators, which was also the highest monthly count so far, during September.

According to the details, the majority of the offences for which the vehicles were challaned included maximum of 233 for overloading followed by 93 for driving without documents, 77 over height vehicles, 46 for plying without paying taxes, 25 for body alterations, 17 for use of pressure horns, eight for over length vehicles and 146 challans were issued for other offences between February and September.

The month-wise challans tally revealed that 103 challans were issued in February, followed by 29 in March, 57 in April, 71 in May, 47 in June, 17 in July, 52 in August, and the highest-ever 218 violators were challaned in September alone.

The month-wise fine figures showed that a fine of Rs 22,58,055 was slapped on violators in February, followed by Rs 6,23,400 in March, Rs 11,94,900 in April, Rs 18,53,600 in May, Rs 11,63,700 in June, Rs 3,60,800 in July, Rs 12,92,300 in August, and the highest-ever fine of Rs 59,18,100 was imposed in September, which was over 4.5 times than the fine imposed in August.

School buses among top violators

School buses were the third most violating vehicles challaned during the past eight months. While the canters topped the chart with a maximum of 173 violators, as many as 111 school buses were also challaned between February and September.

Among other vehicles, 124 trucks, 31 truck trailers, 68 tippers, 28 pick-up vans, 21 tractor-trailers, 10 goods carriers, 13 state carriage buses, 10 tourist buses, two electric buses, a mini-bus, and two bulk trucks were also challaned in the district.

New initiatives

The RTA Secretary would soon introduce e-challaning with the use of portable POS machines, which had already been tested and would be introduced shortly. “It would reduce paperwork, create digital record, and make the challaning drive more efficient and transparent,” she said.

Issues

The RTA Secretary often faces security issues due to the lack of police support and refusal by police stations to keep the impounded vehicles for lack of space. “We are also facing shortage of dedicated staff like ADTOs for further intensifying the challaning drive and meeting the revenue targets,” Dr Poonam shared.

Most fatal district

As many as 1,656 persons were killed in mishaps on roads passing through the district between 2019 and 2021, the data compiled by the Punjab Road Safety and Traffic Research Centre in collaboration with the Punjab Police had revealed.

The report on Punjab Road Accidents and Traffic-2021, which was released by Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav recently had showed that road accident casualties in Ludhiana had registered a jump of over 23 per cent in 2021 with the count of deaths going up to 649 in 2021, highest since 2019, from 499 in 2020 and 508 in 2019.

The gravity of the situation could be gauged from the fact that the Ludhiana Commissionerate Police had reported a whopping 380 deaths in road accidents during 2021 against only 157 casualties, which account for even less than half, precisely 41.32 per cent, logged in the other two Police Commissionerates in Amritsar and Jalandhar.

Contrary trend

The rising trend in Ludhiana was contrary to the trend seen in the state, which had recorded an overall decline of 4.5 per cent in road fatalities during the past three years.

Maximum black spots

Ludhiana also tops the state with a maximum of 77 accident black spots, of which 55, which accounted for 71 per cent, were located on national highways.

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