All important highways converging towards the State capital will get highway patrol cover. Presently, Ranchi-Tata Highway stretch of NH 33 is being covered by four Highway Patrol vehicles.
According to Ranchi SSP Prabhat Kumar, the State police are to rope in more Highway Patrol vehicles soon to ensure safer ride on these highways.
“looking at the success of Highway patrol vehicles on Ranchi-Tata Highway, we are soon going to expand its coverage to other highways coming towards Ranchi within a month,” said the SSP. Besides an increase in presence and visibility of police, it has also helped a lot in crime control on these highways, added the SSP.
According to Kumar, other routes getting Highway Patrol cover includes - Ranchi-Hazaribagh, Ranchi-Khunti and Ranchi-Pithoria Roads.
The primary job of these patrol vehicles is to do rounds of the highway to ensure commuters’ safety and security and also provide on-the-spot medical assistance to accident victims before informing the Accident Response and Medical Assistance for Ranchi (ARMAR) team, a collaborative effort of Jharkhand Police, Tata Steel and Medica Hospitals Pvt ltd. These vehicles have proved to be a great help in minimising the number of deaths due to accidents on Ranchi-Tata Road.
“Since, these Highway-Patrol vehicles have proved to be a great help in informing ARMAR, number of deaths due to accidents have surprisingly declined on Ranchi-Tata Road,” said Rural SP Rajkumar lakra, in-charge of Highway Patrol vehicles.
There has been a steep rise in rescue rate of persons meeting with accidents on this route as ARMAR vehicles are now able to reach on the spot within minutes after getting a call from the policemen sitting in these vehicles, he added.
Sources in the concerned police stations, however, claimed that these vehicles are yet to be provided required force for a smooth coverage of highways.
“We have not yet been provided the required strength of police force due to which we have to man these vehicles from the people available in the police stations affecting badly the routine work of the police station,” said a police official requesting anonymity. According to the official, separate police team were provided for the purpose earlier, but were withdrawn during Panchayat elections following which they closed it, he added.