CS for comprehensive strategy to minimise road fatalities in UT

Jammu, Dec 06: Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo on Wednesday called for framing a comprehensive strategy for reducing road fatalities by half in next year and working to bring them down with each passing year. He emphasised on taking inputs from all the concerned including the Transport, Police and Traffic departments to ensure that the traffic regulations are religiously observed by the citizens here.
“It should be the duty of every traffic cop to man the road for better traffic management in the Union Territory,” the Chief Secretary said.
Discussing the traffic scenario and its effective management in Jammu & Kashmir with the concerned authorities, the CS said the city roads and those going to popular tourist destinations need to be given more focus as most of the traffic movement happens on these roads. He called for analyzing the traffic data and diverting sufficient manpower to the areas that are more congested and prone to choking traffic.
Regarding the traffic management in the twin cities of Srinagar and Jammu, the Chief Secretary stressed having very strict enforcement against wrong and roadside parking. He asked for efficient utilization of IT tools to reduce this menace besides identifying the repeated offenders.
Dulloo expressed that there should be certain penalties imposed on every offence which should eventually lead to cancellation of the driving license of repeated offenders. He asked for fixing timelines for employing the renewed mechanism for automatic challaning of drivers breaking traffic rules in addition to bringing out a plan for having disciplined driving on our roads by resorting to a multifaceted strategy from issuance of driving licenses to use of IT tools for identifying and booking traffic violators.
During the interaction, the Chief Secretary was apprised that this year the UT has realized an amount of Rs 17 crore from the violators till November. It was further given out that till the end of the ensuing financial year, a robust city surveillance system besides the Intelligent Traffic Management Systems (ITMS) would be fully functional across the cities of J&K which is going to have a significant impact on the smooth plying of traffic on roads.
“Besides making the testing and trails for securing of driving licenses more meaningful and transparent the Department together with Traffic Police is going to have a more result-oriented plan of action to bring respite to commuters besides reducing the occurrence of mishaps on the roads for saving the precious lives of the people here in J&K,” the Chief Secretary was informed.