BHUBANESWAR: Rapped by the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety over rising accident deaths due to lack of enforcement, the State government has decided to intensify its drive against traffic violation and enforcement of amended motor vehicle rules from January.
While police have already initiated surprise checking to take the traffic violators to task, the transport officials have been directed not to spare anyone found violating traffic rules.
Commerce and Transport Minister Padmanabha Behera said the drive for strict enforcement by the transport officials and police will be accelerated from January. Though all preparations were made to enforce the amended law from March this year, the Covid-19 pandemic slowed down the process. There will be a zero-tolerance approach for violation of the traffic norms, he said.
During a review meeting last month, the Supreme Court Committee had pulled up the government for not enforcing the amended MV Act strictly following which Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy had directed transport and police officials to enforce the rules without showing any leniency.
The officials have been asked to check driving without helmet, drunken driving, over-speeding, using mobile phone while driving, triple riding on two-wheeler, red light jumping, driving against flow of traffic and without using seat belt.
The government has already decided to suspend driving licence (DL) for three months if anyone is caught talking over mobile phone while driving, drunken driving and without helmet. The State Transport Authority has warned that the DL of the biker will be suspended for three months even if the pillion rider is found without helmet.
The Chief Secretary had expressed displeasure over performance of police and transport officials as only 367 DLs were suspended though police had detected about 2.15 lakh helmet law violations and RTOs found 50,000 violations between January and September.
Directives
Officials have been asked to check driving without helmet, drunken driving
State Transport Authority has warned that the DL of the biker will be suspended for three monthstraffic rules