Move for making helmet mandatory

July 31, 2014

Praveer Ranjan wants police-people interface

Praveer Ranjan, IG of Puducherry.Photo: S.S. Kumar

Expressing concern over the spate of road accidents in the Union Territory, the new police chief and Inspector General of Police (IGP) Praveer Ranjan on Wednesday said he would recommend to the Government to implement compulsory wearing of helmets by two-wheeler riders.

“Wearing of helmets is absolutely non-existent in Puducherry,” said Mr. Ranjan while addressing presspersons here to list out his policing priorities.

Statistics showed that in so many road accidents, people died only because they were not wearing helmets. “I will propose to the government to implement the helmet rule in the city at the earliest,” he said.

Describing road traffic issues as one of main interfaces with police for the public, Mr Ranjan advocated improving traffic regulation. “Right now, I myself feel very dissatisfied with the way traffic is managed in the city. There is scope for improvement.”

He also underscored the need for creating awareness among the public about lane driving and speed regulations.

Noting that the law and order situation in the city had improved over the past year or so, he said steps would be taken to make it even better.

The police chief expressed his wish to improve the police-people interface to minimise complaints against the law enforcers.

“People should look upon the police as a friendly and easily accessible unit. There should not be any complaint of rude or impolite behaviour on the part of police,” he said.

“I will take stringent on any misconduct on the police side,” he added.

Holding his proposed strengthening of community policing among fishermen as a matter close to his heart, he said he wished to augment community policing at all levels.

Expressing hope for early approval from the Union government for the proposed safe city project, Mr. Ranjan said the project would cover the entire city.

On the ongoing initiative to computerise and network all police stations under the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network (CCTN) programme, the IGP said that so far 90 per cent of records were digitised and soon the entire country could be linked up on the network.

Mr. Ranjan said 100 more women would be recruited soon in the existing 400 vacancies. On technology exposure and skill training, he said he wanted to send batches of policemen to other centres to undergo training in latest technologies.

Source:The Hindu

Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under About, State Government .(India), Traffic Management

Reconsider ‘stop work’ order, NHAI tells TN govt

November 13, 2013

Chennai: With the contractor of the Chennai port-Maduravoyal elevated corridor project making a fresh claim of Rs 945 crore, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has written to the state government giving it a last ‘opportunity’ to reconsider its decision to stop the project failing which it would terminate the contract.“The NHAI board is of the tentative view that a last opportunity may be given to the state government for withdrawing the stoppage order failing which it will consider terminating the concessionaire agreement,” Satish Chandra, member (Finance) of NHAI said in a letter dated October 25 to Tamil Nadu chief secretary Sheela Balakrishnan.

The Rs 1,815-crore elevated corridor project was put on hold in March 2012 following a ‘stop work’ notice issued by the Water Resources Department alleging deviation in the alignment of the corridor along the banks of the Cooum from the originally approved alignment.

NHAI’s latest appeal to the state government came in the wake of the concessionaire, the Chennai Elevated Tollway Ltd (CETL), seeking compensation of Rs 945.16 crore for the losses suffered by it till September 30.

CETL team leader W. Prakasa Rao, in a recent letter to the general manager (technical), NHAI, New Delhi, sought payment of Rs 945 as compensation toward loss suffered by it within 30 days of receipt of his letter.

Sources in NHAI said that they would be forced to terminate the contract if the state government did not reverse its decision. “Holding the project for a long time will lead to payment of an hefty compensation to the contractor,” the official said.

The NHAI had also approached the Madras High Court seeking a direction to quash the order stopping the work and it also submitted an additional affidavit stating that the state government is bound to bear all financial expenditure on account of stoppage of the project.

Source-http://www.deccanchronicle.com

Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under Legal, State Government .(India)

Transport department flayed for not computerizing data

October 25, 2013

TNN |

PANAJI: The transport department has been hauled up for its failure to complete the work of creating a computerized state and national register as per the provision of Section 63 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

In its report up to March 2011-12, the comptroller and auditor general of India (CAG) has pointed out deficiencies in implementing Vahan and Sarathi, two softwares for various facilities, ranging from registration and taxation to issue of permits and driving licences.

Each state is expected to maintain a register of motor vehicles, containing all details, registration mark and year of manufacture. The state register (SR) was to be created in the database of Vahan software, as per data structure and standards provided by ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH).

The applicant servers and the database servers were to be accessed by the concerned clients and data entries made by them were to be captured and replicated in the server.

The data from SR was to be converted and transferred to the national register (NR). But out of 9,26,537 vehicles, only 1,92,771 vehicles were taken to Vahan database. The rest of the 7,33,766 vehicles remained out of access through NR to other stakeholders. This was due to non-porting of data by the implementing agency, and defeated the purpose of computerization, the CAG noted.

The department website “goatransport.gov.in” has not been updated since June 2011. It was also not linked to Vahan/Sarathi to provide information to the public.

The department had adopted the two softwares, Vahan and Sarathi, developed by national informatics centre (NIC) for computerization of its activities, to switch over from two earlier web base systems called e-RTA and e-Transport.

E-RTA provided the facility of registration and taxation while e-transport provided facility of cash collection, challan generation, prosecution and issue of permits by state transport authority and regional transport authority.

CAG observed that Vahan was not programmed to allot registration numbers of vehicles in a sequential order. Computerization of check posts was not done and the department was still working with e-transport, which was not integrated with Vahan. The report has pointed out several other deficiencies and suggested remedial measures.

Source-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under State Government .(India)