E-Paper
Pune traffic police withholds 360 passport applications to recover pending fines
Morale also appealed to all the traffic violators to immediately pay their dues to avoid facing delays while getting passports
In the first punitive action of its kind in the country, the Pune traffic police has withheld 360 passport applications of people who have failed to clear pending fines of traffic violations.
In August, the police department had linked data of traffic violators and pending fines with the passport department and the character certification department. Following this, the city traffic department decided to withhold the passport applications of the violators till the fines were cleared. The traffic police officials collated information on these 360 violators over the past two months.
Ashok Morale, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Branch), said, “As the traffic violators failed to pay the fines, these 360 applications were put on hold during the verification process. The regional passport office in Pune has assured complete assistance in this initiative of ours and we keep them in the loop while taking such actions.”
Morale said that this step was needed in view of the exponential growth in the number of private vehicles in the city. He claimed that this was a first-of-its-kind initiative initiated to encourage traffic discipline in the city.
Morale also appealed to all the traffic violators to immediately pay their dues to avoid facing delays while getting passports.
In April, the alarming rise in private vehicles was highlighted by the Regional Transport Officer Babasaheb Ajri when he pointed out that the number of vehicles in Pune was more than the city’s population. While Pune’s population stood at 3.5 million, the number of registered vehicles stood at 3.62 million.
The Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) Environment Status Report (ESR), which was released in April 2018, highlighted an alarming 10-fold growth (895%) in the number of four-wheelers and five-fold growth in the number of two-wheelers (400%) in the city since 1997-98.
In recent years, the traffic situation in the city has been marred by acute traffic congestion, increase in commuting time and assault on traffic personnel.
