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| Tired, fatigued: Cops in ‘blue’, Literally! | | Traffic police short of 1000 men | | SALMAN NIZAMI
JAMMU AUG 4: Traffic Police is facing serious dearth of manpower to deal with the burgeoning traffic crisis. Currently the department has only 375 personnel at its disposal in Jammu when there is a need of 1000 more personnel. They work for more than 12 hours a day for traffic regulation and enforcement.
“We are running short of manpower. The way traffic is increasing, we are falling short of at least 1000 personnel to manage traffic in the city as well as in rural areas,” Senior superintendent of police Traffic Parvinder Singh, told Early Times. He said the traffic personnel work in shifts dividing their time in traffic regulation and rule enforcement.” They cannot concentrate on one area only. That is why we are struggling in traffic management,” he said.
Even some traffic police constables acknowledged that they have to toil 12 to 15 hours at a stretch each day owing to inadequate manpower.” Overburden and fatigue may have affected our performances. But what else can we do,” a traffic cop admitted.
The officials also acknowledge the affects of overwork on the cops’ minds and health.” We know they find it tough in the streets to manage the ever increasing traffic. That is why we daily encourage them during the roll calls at morning hours,” the SSP traffic said, adding that it helps to encourage the traffic personnel on roads.
Some years back, the traffic police would work in shifts. The first shift would start at 7 am and end at 2PM. And then the next shift would continue till 10 pm.
However, with the increased traffic across Jammu with subsequent rise in road accidents, the department cancelled the previous shift-system and according to the new schedule, each personnel was required to work on a stretch for more than 12 hours.
According to reports, as many as 7,80,890 vehicles were registered in the state till July this year of which 5,84,180 belong to non-commercial category earning the Motor Vehicle Department a revenue of Rs 78.45 crore during 2008-09 against the target of Rs 77.66 crore.
According to the department officials, roads from the past 40 years are same while as the number of vehicles plying on the roads has increased by almost 15 times.“Right now we have more than 100,000 two wheelers. Every day some 200-300 vehicles are registered in Jammu only. It’s quite difficult to administer such a huge traffic system with a short manpower,” the SSP Traffic added.
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