The performance of City Patrol Unit which faces flak for its focus on slapping penalties on the traffic rule violators would be reviewed and the focus of its activities would be shifted to controlling traffic and stopping accidents, said the new DGP MA Ganapathy.
He also said that the unit might be used to control crimes. Mentionworthy, the unit came into being in Dehradun in April, 2014 at the behest of the just retired DGP BS Sidhu who had conceived it, inspired by the existing US model. CPU was later expanded to Haridwar and Haldwani again at the initiative of Sidhu to enforce order on the bustling roads of the two important cities of the State.
The new DGP said that unlike the earlier time when the command over the unit rested with the Range level officers, the district police head would control things from now onwards. The district head cops would deploy CPU according to their discretion to enforce traffic laws and control accidents and crimes, he said.
Noteworthy, when CPU came up the command over the unit rested with police headquarters. later, it was transferred to the Range levels to the utter dismay of Sidhu who had said that the transfer of command of the unit had been done at the bidding of the administration. However, the refrain was that the intense hostility CPU had generated among the cross-section of the people and particularly among the high and mighty for its pro-activeness on the roads resulted in the power to run it getting transferred from the SPs at PHQ to the Garhwal and Kumaon ranges.
What the CPU has achieved during its nearly two years’ career can hardly be dismissed as trash. As per statistics, CPU had imposed more challans under Motor Vehicle Act on the traffic violators than traffic police which is traditionally entrusted with the task of bringing to book and imposing penalties on the traffic rule violators,
However, the unit remains mired in uncertainty as no Government order has been passed to regularise the specialised unit. It is learnt that a section of the bureaucrats is not well-disposed towards the unit, a reservation that keeps the regularisation of the unit hang in balance. There is little doubt that CPU remains discernible in Dehradun city with the people who used to flout traffic rules with impunity previously being forced to comply with swift punitive action hanging over them. Those driving two-wheelers are being seen with helmets on-a sight which was rare previously.
However, on the flipside, it has courted numerous controversies in for its alleged highhandedness. It invited ire of the political parties and the common residents who faced the heat for violating traffic rules. Worse, the shopkeepers in Dehradun are vociferous too, demanding dismantlement of CPU, alleging they are milking money out of the vulnerable. People, especially youths, are of the view that CPU has acquired notoriety for extorting money from the people instead of focusing on maintaining
traffic norms or preventing crimes.
“Now, it is to be seen how the new DGP would new-make the unit, shifting its focus from the act of making the law violators shell out money as penalty to the task of enforcing traffic rules and checking crimes and whether the unit would prove its efficacy in its new tasks,” said a senior cop.