As the Christmas and the New Year celebrations are approaching, the police in Dehradun and Mussoorie are a worried lot, as the police stations are bereft of the alcometers which determine whether those driving cars are drunk or not.
“This is the time when the people are inclined to indulge in drunk driving. Hordes of tourists and revellers are likely to come here around this time, heightening the possibility of drunk and rash driving which might result in accidents and casualties,” said a police officer deployed at Mussoorie police station.
Police sources say that there are 59 alcometers in the district and just eight of 20 police stations have the instrument. Police personnel perforce take the drivers who appear to be drunk to the local hospitals for confirmation of whether they are really drunk or not. “State police are spending crores of rupees in the name of modernisation of the force.
But the police stations are devoid of alcometers despite the spike in the fatal accidents triggered mostly by drunk driving. While the traffic police have alcometers we have none, something that tells the sad story of how we are manning the police stations here,” said a police station in-charge in Dehradun.
Recounting the same woe, Vikasnagar circle officer said that some police stations in Sahaspur and Vikasnagar might have been equipped alcometres. “I do not know the exact number of the alcometers they have. But the rest have none,” he said.
SP Traffic DS Gunjyal said that there are 59 alcometres in the district. “Eight police stations, including Nehru Colony, Patelnagar, Sahaspur and Vikasnagar police stations, have been given alcometres. Besides, the traffic police are having 41 alcometres whose jurisdictions are spread in Dehradun city, Rishikesh, Mussoorie and Vikasnagar. City Patrol Unit personnel are equipped with them too,” he said.
Observers say that things are really precarious on the ground. “Accidents continue to take toll and they mostly result from drunk and rash driving. The possibilities of such accidents rise several times during the festive time from the Christmas to the New Year when the revellers turn wild, throwing all cautions to the winds. Yet the police force here are crippled for the want of the much-needed alcometers,” said one of the observers.
Notably, then chief minister Harish Rawat was shocked while he embarked on an unannounced road inspection sometime in 2015 as he found that the policemen deputed at bustling Dilaram Chowk during midnight hours when the maximum instances of drunk driving occur were shorn of a single alcometre. Subsequently, a hope was aroused of corrective steps to follow which remains elusive till date, making roads during celebration all the more precarious.