As a part of Road Safety Week, the Jamshedpur district police have made mandatory for petrol pumps not to sell petrol to two-wheeler riders without helmets. In order to check the implementation of the drive, both district traffic police officials and transport officials have decided to randomly check CCTV footages at petrol pumps across the city to ensure that staff of fuel oil outlets are following the orders.
East Singhbhum DTO Sanjay Kujur, Motor Vehicle Inspector (MVI) Awadesh Kumar and Jamshedpur traffic DSP Jacinta Kerketta on Monday ordered all the 36 retail fuel outlets to follow No Helmet No Petrol campaign. According to orders, teams will the CCTV footages during the week-long road safety week observed across the State.
“We are trying to strictly implement the orders. We have received information that at some fuel outlets bikers have forced staff of the fuel outlets to refill even though they were not wearing helmets. We have warned the fuel outlets that they will be penalised if they flout the norms. We would like to verify it after watching footages of CCTVs at the outlets,” said DSP traffic Jacinta Kerketta. She further said that it would not be a week-long affair and the inspection will continue.
“We want to ensure safety on the roads. We will continue with drive against helmet-less riders and traffic rules violators even after the conclusion of the road safety week,” said the traffic police official.
The directive has evoked mixed reactions from the fuel outlets owners. “We welcome the steps taken by administration to spread awareness on road safety amongst bikers but since Sunday we have had several instances at petrol pump outlets wherein our staff were abused by bikers after they refused to refill their bikes for not wearing helmets,” said Jamshedpur Petrol Dealers Association secretary Rajesh Singh.
The administration is also conducting surprise inspection at the fuel refill outlets in city. On Monday, it conducted surprise inspections at four fuel refill outlets at Bistupur and prosecuted 20 traffic rules violators. An official said that they cannot conduct inspections at all the petrol pump outlets. This has prompted them to go watch the CCTV footages. The pump owners found violating the directive will be liable for fine of Rs5,000.
A local resident said that police failed to perform their job so they are thinking to enforce such rules and put the onus on petrol pump owners. She said that it's the duty of traffic police to check people, who are drunk or without helmet. The rule should be implemented for those people who consumed liquor while driving not for the one who are without helmet.