Bhubaneswar: After series of reformative steps to ensure seamless traffic management through the amended Motor Vehicles Act-2019, Odisha government is presently mulling to tighten noose on traffic violation through public participation.
As per reports, a mobile application has already been designed through which any responsible citizen who downloads it can send pictures and videos of traffic violation to the police department for necessary action against the violators.
The proposal regarding this was floated in the managing committee meeting of Road Safety Fund. However, the mobile app was sent to National Informatics Centre (NIC) and Odisha Computer Application Centre (OCAC) before rolling it out for the public to foolproof it against any probable misuse by any mischief mongers.
Notably, this is not the first time that such a kind of a suggestion has been proposed. In fact it was a long standing demand of the intellectuals to include common men into traffic management through technology driven policing, but despite the push, the delay by government to implement the plan on the ground has left many hapless.
A former member of National Road Safety Council, Syed Maqbool Ali said, “Government should include the public in the initiative. An award for community policing could motivate people to get them download the app and start tracking violation.”
A youth in the smart city Bhubaneswar said, “Now-A-days everybody carries a smartphone. An android application to report traffic violations on the street could go a long way to deal with the menace.”
In a similar development, state government has decided to install CCTV surveillance system on the entire stretch of Sanabaruan to Rameswar at an approximate cost of Rs 15 Crore to monitor traffic mishaps and curb drunken driving menace.
Shedding light on the proposal, Odisha Transport minister, PadmnabhBehera said, “All the important National Highways are to be covered with CCTV cameras in the first phase. Then gradually we will shift our focus to the state highways.”
“We can’t move forward without taking into account the opinion of public. We will take their opinion first before moving any proposal,” added Minister Behera.
Sources said, the government has planned to equip more police stations with breath analysers to keep a leash on drunken driving including a control and command centre to address the queries and grievances of the general public relating to transport sector.
However, after spending crores of rupees on road safety schemes, the State police department has miserably failed to submit the Utilisation Certificates (UCc). As per reports, the Commissionerate Police is yet to submit UC amounting to Rs 56.99 lakh while the State police has a due of Rs.1.07 Crore to submit as UC.
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