People in Delhi will soon receive traffic challans on WhatsApp as Lt Governor VK Saxena at a meeting on Thursday directed the traffic police to expedite the process. Taking the traffic situation in the national capital to consideration, LG Saxena started reviewing the situation on a fortnightly basis and during the review, expressed concern over illegal parking on roadside, flyovers, especially by buses which cause inconvenience to commuters and compromise road safety apart from increasing pollution caused by vehicular emission.
Raj Niwas officials told news agencvy PTI that Saxena reviewed various issues related to traffic in Delhi and Special Commissioners of Traffic (Zone I and II) and commissioner transport were present in the meeting.
During the meeting, the LG directed the traffic police to enhance the sensibility and presence of personnel on roads and also urged traffic police should constitute joint teams with the transport department to check overloading of commercial vehicle and overcrowding of passenger buses.
"Traffic Police, which was earlier directed to ensure putting in place a system where traffic challans are issued on WhatsApp, was further directed to expedite the process," the Raj Niwas official said.
"This will provide timely information about the challans to violators and provide them facility to pay challan anywhere and anytime. It will also increase the rate of realisation of challans," the official said.
The LG during the review meeting also directed for installation of AI-based Automatic Number Plate recognition cameras to fetch information on traffic violation and consequent issuance of challans through SMS and WhatsApp and realisation without human interface.
For better handling of the traffic situation in the city, the LG called for integrating the requirements of traffic police in this project for better coordination amongst transport department and traffic police and to avoid duplicacy of work by both the departments. He also asked the officials to submit a plan to shift ISBT Kashmere Gate to decongest traffic.
Traffic police should identify vulnerable points of traffic congestion and deploy dedicated teams to ensure smooth flow of traffic on those roads, the official said.
The Lt Governor has also asked the officials to conduct a drive to impound illegal e-rickshaws plying on roads without valid registration which cause congestion and impact passenger safety.
He also directed the transport department along with MCD and traffic police to present action plan to implement Parking Policy and called for joint drives of traffic and department to ensure compliance of PUC certification and enforcement.
He also directed for special drives to be carried out for bus lane enforcement especially on Ring Road, Airport Road and the national highway stretch with zero tolerance for deviation.
(With inputs from PTI)
