No check on traffic offenders in Mohali

Savreet Kaur

Mohali, June 19

Commuters continue to defy traffic rules in the city with impunity in the absence of police personnel, who are missing at the major intersections. The CCTV cameras remain mute spectators.

On a routine day, it is difficult to spot traffic police personnel at the Phase 7-8 light point, the Singh Shaheedan Gurdwara lights, and the Phase 3-5 lights. Most of the CCTV cameras at the major intersection in the city are defunct with no regular maintenance.

Ramesh Kumar, a vendor at Sector 61, said, “There is no control by the traffic police. People continue to violate laws.”

The traffic police had planned to install around 390 CCTV cameras at 20 vulnerable intersections across Mohali last year; however, that project has not been running at the desired level. The Punjab Police were set to install automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) and red-light violation detection (RLVD) cameras across the district so that traffic offenders would be served e-challans; however, there are no cameras at Sector 61. Officials said there are only 120 traffic personnel to manage the entire district, which spans 1,098 square kilometres.