Traffic violations, number of deaths in road accidents rise in Noida

By Advitya Bahl

Noida, June 27 (IANS) The number of traffic violations in Gautam Buddh Nagar has more than doubled in the first five months of this year compared to the same period last year, according to officials.

According to the data accessed by IANS, in the first five months, the Gautam Buddh Nagar district has witnessed 481 accidents resulting in 220 deaths and 393 people being injured. While in 2018, during the same period, there were 458 accidents in which 186 people died and 359 were injured.

According to the data accessed by IANS, the total number of challans last year in the first five months were 1,35,640 while this year they were recorded 2,72,160 in the same period.

Electronic Challan System is a spot traffic ticket issued by the traffic police for a violation of Motor Vehicle Act or Traffic Regulation Act.

Officials attributed the reason for the sharp spike in number of traffic violators to the installation of cameras and the beginning of e-challan facility. The traffic violators who were once difficult to track and needed a huge number of personnel to patrol are now located easily through cameras installed in Noida.

"The reason behind the massive increase in the number of challans is because the digital challan system, which was introduced in the district on April 2018. We have installed cameras at various places following which we do not have to do anything manually. An e-challan is generated and information is sent on your number," said Anil Kumar Jha, SP (Traffic), Gautam Buddh Nagar.

According to Jha, the number of challans invilving driving without helmet are almost 20% of the total number i.e. 53,439 this year in the initial five months. Around 21% of the challans were recorded of seat belt, that is 58,474.

Speaking to IANS, Jha said: "There are around 60 cameras installed in the entire district; 40 of them are for checking different violations such as signal jumping, helmet, seat belt and overspeeding. There are 18 specialized speed catching cameras in the district with high technology."

The increase in the number of traffic tickets has also provided the Noida police an amount of Rs 8,43,41,300 while the total number of disposed cases are 66,701 this year.

Each traffic staff member has been given a phone for the purpose. In order to issue a challan, the staff member has to upload a photograph of the offending vehicle and its registration number in the app.

"As you can see in the data, ever since the introduction of e-challan, the number has increased almost 5 times. In April 2018, the number of violations were 16,584 which had jumped to massive 83,264 in May 2018. Previously, the traffic police was issuing manual challans to violators," said Jha.

Under the e-challan system, police personnel on catching an offender, no longer require documents to issue a challan. Instead, a challan is generated through vehicle registration number fed to the e-challan mobile application. The application accesses all the required details of the vehicle operator through vehicle registration number and then the challan is generated on the spot.

Moreover, the software designed for the e-challan system maintains a record of every offender. "If a person is caught violating a traffic norm more than once, the hand-held device will immediately reflect his previous history making it easy to categorise the offender as a first-timer or a habitual offender," said Jha.

(Advitya Bahl can be contacted on advitya.b@ians.in)