Srinagar, June 16: With inadequate laws and dependence on other institutions, the Jammu and Kashmir Traffic Police Department is proving to be a damp squib with regard to law enforcement, lessening accidents and regulating traffic in times of mounting vehicular population in the state.
 “It has been observed that investigation into road traffic accidents assumes least priority by the investigating officers,” writes the then Inspector General of Police (Traffic), Muhammad Amin Shah, in Trafficinfo. “The lukewarm treatment of road accident cases is evident by the fact that very few cases of traffic accidents end up in convictions during trial. Some end up in conviction purely on the confession of the drivers which cannot be counted as the achievement of the investigations at the police station level.”
 According to Shah, traffic laws figured at the tail end of crime schedule. “With the result the traffic violations entail minor punishments,” he writes, adding, “Even traffic violations which are accident-causing in nature entail minor punishment, not being deterrent in nature.”
 The Department has lamented over the “lack of powers” with regard to clearance of footpaths. “For want of space on footpaths, pedestrian traffic is diverted on the main roads adding to the miseries of traffic jamming.
 To clear the footpaths and roads is the primary responsibility of the municipal bodies and other civic bodies. Traffic Police is unable to do anything in this regard as it has no jurisdiction to deal with such cases,” the Trafficinfo mentions.
 The Traffic Police is not empowered to investigate the cases of vehicular accidents to fix the actual culprits, keep track of the crime-repeaters for ensuring enhancement of punishment and taking other measures under Motor Vehicles Act like the suspension or cancellation of licenses. “To keep track of the defaulting vehicles and the erring drivers, the investigation of the auto accidental cases needs to be entrusted to the Traffic Police. This will enable it to proceed against the erring drivers and others found responsible for cause of accident besides for cancellation, suspension of their licenses, route permits to minimize the accidents,” the Department has suggested. “The entrustment of the investigation of such cases to the Traffic Police should not be any problem. The powers can be granted to Traffic officials under CrPC on the lines granted to Forest officials under Forest Act. In that event, the offices of SSP (Traffic) Kashmir, SSP (Traffic) Jammu and SSP (Traffic) NHW Ramban can be declared Police Stations for taking up these investigations.
 The department has also sought powers to seize vehicles, when needed. “With the emergence of new pattern of traffic crime such as plying of unregistered vehicle, plying of vehicle on fake and fictitious registration, plying of stolen vehicles, plying of vehicles without route permits and rising trend of rash and negligent driving on the valley roads, it has become necessary to seize such vehicles and arrest the erring drivers to investigate the matter further,” the Trafficinfo mentions. “It is therefore, imperative to give the traffic Police the powers to seize the vehicles and arrest erring drivers who are held for the commission of the following traffic crimes for further investigation, as and when the proposed Traffic Police Stations are sanctioned and established.”
 Sources said there was a hardly a cop punished for “negligence” during occurrence of road accidents. “When the department has no powers, how can it punish the erring cops?” they asked. “Suspending odd one or two cops on negligence charges is no achievement. The department should have the power to punish the erring cops and drivers equally. Otherwise nothing can act as a deterrent for drivers and the accidents will continue to happen in large numbers.”
 While the department is dependent on other departments for so many things, it is unable to even utilize its own money, which, according to officials, was hampering conduction of all important traffic awareness programmes. “Due to limited resources on account of funds, the traffic awareness campaigns are not of desired level. Accordingly the state government had approved in 2008 to allocate 50 percent of the compound realized on account of traffic violations on carrying out traffic awareness campaigns on large scale. But unfortunately, no sanction till date has been accorded by the government to place funds at the disposal of traffic police.”

Lastupdate on : Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:00:00 IST