Bhubaneswar: The Regional Transport Offices(RTO) and the Police department have together issued 23,019 e-challans against violators of traffic rules across Odisha between March 1 and March 10.
The RTOs across the State have issued 10,794 e-challans, of which 1340 e-challans have been issued for over speeding, 187 for using mobile phone while driving, 148 for driving against flow of traffic, 125 for drunken driving, 552 for driving without seat belt, 247 for triple riding, 4511 for driving without helmet, 10 cases of juvenile driving among others.
District wise RTO Ganjam has issued 1314 e-challans, followed by Sambalpur-1068, Balasore-870, Bhubaneswar(1&2) 773 and Koraput- 465.
Similarly, 12,225 e-challans have been issued by the Police department against violators of traffic rules between March 1 and 10.
As many as 421 e-challans were issued by police department for over speeding, 128 for using mobile phone while driving, six for driving against flow of traffic, 1509 for driving without seat belt, 371 for triple riding and 5355 for driving without helmet among others.
The number of cases for drunken driving is not available on e-challan system as police is yet to submit the report to the courts.
The State Government had relaxed strict implementation of the amended motor vehicle (MV) Act upto February 29 so that motorists can update the documents. From March 1, both the Police and Transport department enforced the amended MV Act in the State with the aim to reduce the number of deaths due to road accidents.
As per the new rules, Rs 5000 penalty will be imposed on commuters for driving vehicles without license, Rs 10,000 and Rs 2000 will be levied for not carrying pollution certificate and insurance certificate respectively.
It may be noted that the Odisha government had earlier made it clear that there won’t be any further relaxation and so stricter enforcement of traffic rules under the revised MV Act would be reintroduced from March 1.
The enforcement was relaxed for three months in December and before that in September following a State-wide public outrage over the collection of hefty fines.