PESHAWAR: Increase in penalty proposed for traffic violation
By Bureau Report
PESHAWAR, Jan 9: The city traffic police have proposed enhancing penalty for offenders to curb traffic rules violation, officials said.
An official said that summary had been sent to the provincial government in this regard and proposed to introduce standard of the Motorway Police to minimise traffic rules violation.
"The police have no other option to overcome growing traffic offences but impose maximum penalties," he said. He estimated that the police issued more than 150,000 tickets to the violators annually, but violations were still on the rise.
Sources in the police department hoped that increase in punishment would not only reduce ratio of the offences in the provincial, but it would also enhance revenue, if the government accepted the proposal.
The provincial government replaced challan system with ticket system through an ordinance in 1999. Under the ordinance minimum fine for traffic rules violation was fixed at Rs 50 and maximum was fixed at Rs 300.
According to official estimates, the traffic police generated Rs six million annually under this head. Under the law, the police officials get 15 per cent share of the total recovery and the remaining amount is deposited into the national exchequer.
However, an official of the traffic police said that they were not receiving 15 per cent share mentioned in the law. Sources said that it had been proposed to raise penalty for drivers without licence from Rs 300 to Rs 750.
Under the new proposal the traffic police has suggested to fix minimum fine for an offender at Rs 300, said a functionary of the traffic police. Citing reasons for the proposed increase in fines, he said, the Motorway Police controlled offences after introducing heavy penalties, which discouraged the drivers.
"Users only care for the rules when they have to pay hefty amount for violating the rules. With a nominal fine of Rs 50 majority of the drivers do not obey the law," he added.
