PANJIM: With a significant increase in the prosecution of traffic offenders in the last calendar year, the suspension of licenses has also jumped over four times wherein two type of offenses – ‘over speeding’ and ‘using mobile phone’ while driving – saw 2,500-odd licenses suspended for a minimum three months.
Details with Herald reveal that the Transport Department has suspended licenses of 4,227 violators in 2018, a sharp increase from 977 suspensions recorded in the preceding year. The total suspensions come as against over 19,000 seized licences forwarded by the Traffic Department to Transport Department recommending suspension.
As per the data, maximum 1,544 speeding violators had their licences suspended followed by 1,018 riders/drivers caught using mobile phone while driving the vehicle and the least, 36 offenders’ licences were suspended for carrying persons in goods carriages. For the drunken driving offence, the Transport department has suspended 876 licences in 2018 year, more than double of that reported in 2017.
By way of challans, the department has earned Rs 2.92 crore approx from April 2018 to January 2019. A senior transport officer disclosed that the revenue is expected to touch Rs 3.75 crore by the end of the current financial year.
During the release of annual crime and traffic road safety report in January this year, the then Director General of Police Muktesh Chander had stated that for the first time in 15 years, Goa Police recorded a significant drop in fatal accidents and a sharp increase of 48 percent in prosecution of traffic offenders last year.
During the last year intensive traffic enforcement under Traffic Sentinel Scheme had led to identifying 51,597 traffic violators, and the Goa Police collected a total amount of around Rs 66.43 lakh as fine from the offenders. Last year, the police department prosecutes 7,74,578 traffic violations and collected fine amount to around Rs 9.19 crore whereas in 2017, the department booked 5,22,355 cases and collected around Rs 6.40 crore as fine.
