Only 300 police personnel on roads Facing shortage of manpower, traffic police unable to remove tainted glasses

Only 300 police personnel on roads Facing shortage of manpower, traffic police unable to remove tainted glasses Nitesh Sangral JAMMU, July 27: Though the Traffic police has asked the State High Court to give one month time to remove tainted glasses from vehicles, but shortage of manpower could derail the assurance of the police. Sources said that the huge exercise of removing the tainted glasses cannot be completed in few months, because Jammu is already facing the shortage of manpower for streamlining the vehicular movement. There are only 300 traffic police personnel in the city, which are directing the flow of five lakh vehicles. It is pertinent to mentioned here that taking serious note of non-compliance of its directions, which were based on the orders of Supreme Court regarding removal of tinted films from the private as well as Government vehicles, Division Bench (DB) of the State High Court directed the IG Traffic to appear in person on next date of hearing and himself file latest compliance report. The DB also made it clear that with week in case the orders of the Apex Court of the country were not complied with the High Court would not hesitate from initiating contempt proceedings against the IG Traffic. Official source said that the traffic department today is reeling under several problems one being the shortage of manpower as compared to the ever growing population of the city and other being the lack of any concrete policy to deal with the issue. “One of the challenges for the Traffic department is to tackle this growing vehicles. In the last few years, there hasn’t been any new development seen in the traffic department”, said a officer of traffic department. “ There is a shortage of man power and equipments which has made it difficult for the traffic department to control and keep a check on traffic discipline” he added. The traffic police department has only 300 traffic policemen to control around 5 lakh vehicles on the city roads. There are atleast 10 lakh vehicles across the state and there is no data how many of the vehicles are with tainted glasses. “It takes 5 to 10 minutes to remove the film from a vehicle and the Traffic Wing was already facing shortage of manpower due to which, it was not possible to carry on the drive”, said a senior officer from traffic police. When contacted Inspector General of Police (IGP) traffic, Munnir Khan said that the traffic police department also facing shortage of man power beside this half traffic police deployed in Shri Amarnath Yatra. These things create more trouble to tackle the traffic system in the state. He further said that the traffic police department has start special drive against the tinted glasses vehicle across the state once again. The per day average of tinted glasses removed are 300 to 500 vehicles in each day. “the traffic police also taking help with Secretary General Secretariat, State Motor Garage and others to issued the notice to remove the all black films on the vehicles. Otherwise traffic police take strict action on government vehicles.