Two persons — a head constable and a 17-year old girl — being killed in two road accidents in the city over the past three days thanks to the menace of rash driving, questions are being raised over the activities of the City Patrol Unit (CPU). The unit was brought into force to control rash driving and drunk driving among others. However, over the years, it has been reduced to a machinery to slap challans for illegal parking and other trivial cases of traffic rule violation. Though it has been facing flak for some time over its perceived non-visibility on the city roads — save for imposing parking-related penalties — its performance is yet to be evaluated.
A head constable Pramod Rana 32, deputed at the Chief Minister’s residence, had died when a speeding truck had rammed into the bike he was riding near a private hospital at Jogiwala Chowk in Nehru Colony on Friday. The truck had also collided with a car and a Vikram after it had knocked down the two-wheeler. Earlier on Wednesday, a 17-year- old girl Sudha Shekhawat, native of Rewari, Haryana had died when a car had smashed the scooty she had been riding near Bijapur Guest House. Police had ascribed both the accidents to reckless driving.
CPU had been brought on the roads first in Dehradun (April 2014) at the behest of then DGP BS Sidhu and later in Haridwar, Rudrapur, Roorkee and Haldwani with a lot of fanfare coupled with the people’s expectations of the unit ridding them of the menace of drunk and rash driving. Initially, it had risen to the challenge put before it. It had made the commuters to conform to the traffic rules such a mandatory wearing of the helmets and the like. Rash and drunk driving had been controlled to some extent too. However, with the passage of time, the unit seemed to have lost its initial vigour in restoring order on the roads. Now, it has been reduced to a machinery to collect revenue in the form of penalties imposed on the trivial traffic violations. Observers say that the principal objective behind churning out the force being shoved to the backburner, it is now engaged in harassing the commuters on trivial matters.
Notably, around 197 police personnel from PAC and civil police have been inducted in CPU, now operating at five places- Haridwar, Haldwani, Almora Dehradun, Roorkee and Rudrapur. Currently four inspectors, 83 sub-inspectors and 110 constables are working for the six units of the force across the State.