Drive against drunken driving fails to yield results

The traffic police's tall claims on checking drunken driving do not match the reality on the city roads. Deevakar Anand and Sunil Thapliyal report.

The traffic police's tall claims on checking drunken driving do not match the reality on the city roads.

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The department claims to have issued 3,420 challans for drunken driving between January 1 and June 20 this year. A total of 199 such offenders have been fined in the past weekend alone.

According to traffic police officials, 94 challans were issued for drunken driving on Friday night and 105 on Saturday.

But when a Hindustan Times team went out on Sunday night across the city to verify the claims, it found many drunk drivers roaming fearlessly between 11 pm and 4 am (Monday) in the absence of traffic police personnel.

The HT team found just one team of traffic police deployed to catch such offenders.

The team at IFFCO chowk had handed out around a dozen challans by 2am. "We focus more on Friday and Saturday nights," said one of the officials.

The department has around 60 alcometres - the device that checks the presence of alcohol in a person's blood- but only two of them which the team at IFFCO chowk possessed, were found to be in use.

A team was reportedly conducting checks on Gurgaon-Delhi Kapashera border but when the HT team reached there around 1.30am, none of the traffic staff was found.

Not even a single PCR van was deployed on the border, even though a Delhi police team was seen checking each vehicle entering the national capital from Gurgaon side.

No policeman was found near the city's liquor hubs such as the MG Road, expressway, the Golf Course Road , Delhi-Gurgaon toll plaza, and police check point on the Gurgaon's Palam Vihar and Delhi's Brijwasan area.

“We intensify our drives against drunken driving on Fridays and Saturdays. On Sundays, we carry out surprise checking in different areas,” said Anil Kumar Rao, joint commissioner of police.