HYDERABAD: People usually check their immediate surroundings before parking vehicles in no-parking zones, diligently enquire around if traffic police frequent the place. If conditions are in favour, they park vehicles.
But this would not work anymore as the general public are also reporting traffic violations in their lanes and by-lanes through the ‘Hyderabad Traffic Live’ mobile application. A peeved house owner, disgruntled neighbour or a concerned citizen could be recording this breach of law. More than 40 such complaints were received by the Hyderabad Traffic Police (HTP), 19 days after launching the application. The app was downloaded around 13,000 times till Wednesday.
All one needs to do is tap on ‘Public Interface’ icon in the app, send photo of the vehicle, select category of the complaint and submit details of the breach such as time, location, kind of breach and one’s phone number. If the registration number of the vehicle is clear, the traffic police will issue a chalan. However, false complaints will attract punishment.
RTC buses not stopping at designated bus stops and rude behaviour of auto-drivers are also among the complaints lodged through the app. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic-II), AV Ranganath, earlier said based on the nature of a complaint, such as rude behaviour by an auto-driver, an alert will be sent to the nearest patrolling van.
“As the mobile app is installed on smart phones, the patrolling party will know the location of the complainant. They will reach the spot and sort out the problem,” DCP Ranganath said. He said details of the complainant will be kept confidential.
“We received around 30 complaints against auto-drivers. When people complain, photo which shows the violation, time, location, description of a violation, is a must,” said Sokkam Pratap, inspector at HTP’s Traffic Command Centre.
Complaints can be lodged against drivers of taxis, RTC buses and SETWIN-buses, for over-charging, eve-teasing, driving when drunk and also not charging according to the meter.