Chandigarh, you’re under surveillance! Go easy on the accelerator

The number of speeding challans in the city has shot up three-fold since 2020, when the UT traffic police acquired three Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) systems

With Chandigarh police having the latest technology at its disposal to catch traffic violators, those speeding on city roads can no longer get off easy.

With Chandigarh police having the latest technology at its disposal to catch traffic violators, those speeding on city roads can no longer get off easy. (HT File)

The number of speeding challans in the city has shot up three-fold since 2020, when the UT traffic police acquired three Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) systems.

The ANPR systems, which can measure the speed of a vehicle as well as click its picture, were acquired in May 2020. The traffic police had also regularised speed limits throughout the city around this time.

While in 2020, the number of challans issued for speeding stood at 32,497, this year, till October, 1,99,566 challans were issued. Out of these, 91,235 challans were issued by the Police Command and Control Centre (PCCC), established under the Integrated Command and Control Centre project of the Chandigarh Smart City.

Stating that having eyes in the sky, in form of these ANPR systems, has immensely helped, UT superintendent of police (SP, traffic & security) Ketan Bansal said, “We have replaced manual speed check with surveillance through closed-circuit television cameras, which are way more efficient. Using these cameras, we can cover a larger area and also keep tabs round-the-clock.”

Punjab traffic adviser and member of the state-level road safety council, Navdeep Asija, said, “Chandigarh traffic police has minimised human intervention and enforcement is now being done with the help of technology. But the more important fact to be considered here is that the offence of speeding is increasing, and there is a need to check this.”

Harpreet Singh, founder president of the NGO Avoid Accident, said, “The use of technology for road surveillance is a good. Earlier, cops could keep tabs on speeding for a limited period of time, but now this issue has been addressed.”