He has been in the hot seat of the Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic and Security) for nearly two-and-half years. IPS officer Praveen Sood has much to say about the city's motorists.

Focusing primarily on maintaining discipline on the road, the traffic police department under his leadership has gone all out on nabbing offenders. With the help of technology and a non-compromising stand in enforcing the law, the department attempts to compensate for its severe staff shortage.

Praveen Sood in conversation with Citizen Matters about the technology used to monitor traffic, while demonstrating traffic flow in a major intersection in the city. Pic: Navya P K.

Sood is known to be a straight talker with a keen analytical mind. In this exclusive interview with Citizen Matters on 23 July, he weighs in as only he can about traffic management in the ever-chaotic roads of Bangalore, the linkage to the city's infrastructure problems, and new initiatives by his department and citizens' role in improving traffic conditions. (Sood's previous interview with Citizen Matters was two years ago, in August 2008.)

In intersections, especially in places where construction work is going on, there are not enough traffic policemen at times. Is there a shortage of personnel?

There is huge shortage of personnel considering that every road is dug up. Today there are 43 major works going on - flyovers, underpasses, road widenings and metro work. Roads have been dug up along 60 km, which has affected 20 junctions. There are 70-80 junctions where there are traffic diversions. There are many traffic problems because of construction. When we have traffic police, they cannot cater to these things. So that creates lot of gap, which we try to fulfill through homeguards because we can't put policemen in places where construction is going on. Then the entire traffic police will be looking at this only. So we supplement that work using homeguards.

How many homeguards are there now?

We have roughly 300 people. But don't forget, homeguards are volunteers, they come sometimes, they don't come sometimes; they are not paid employees. They might come 15 days a month, sometimes 30 days a month. We can't force them. Many of them work for a week and find that this is too much. It's not easy, it only looks easy and they never come back. At present we have about 300, but actual figure varies between 200 and 300.

So do traffic police also manage such intersections?

That depends on the intensity. If there's diversion or serious management needed, then traffic police will be there. If it can be managed by homeguards, then they will do it.

And in regular intersections is there a shortage of traffic police?

There's nothing like shortage. We cover only 1,000 out of 40,000 junctions. We don't even touch 39,000 junctions. Of the 1000 also, only 200-300 are manned round the clock. Other junctions work on lights. If you get 1000 more people, you will be able to take care of 1000 more junctions. If you don't have manpower, it will be manned by the people themselves, in the sense god almighty will look after.

Are you taking any action to take care of this situation?

It's not our wish list that we ask for 1000 people and government gives 1000 people. It's very difficult to add even a single constable. There are constraints.

Are you planning to use automated signals in these areas?

Of the 40,000 junctions in the city, 4,000 are major junctions. No city has 4,000 major junctions. There is no point in putting a signal in every junction.

But given the accident rates for the city, aren't signals necessary?

Signals don't reduce accidents. Accidents are related to people's behaviour. If we put signals unnecessarily, accidents will only increase, not decrease.

Are there any upcoming projects by the traffic department? Are you planning anything new in traffic management?

We will continue to manage traffic as we have been doing with technology in a big way. We had put four variable message sign boards some months back. Today it is 10. In the next three months, we will have 10 more variable message sign boards making the total to 20.  Already 185 cameras are working in the city. In such junctions, the chances of gridlock occurring is very remote. People know they are being watched, everything is recorded. If a gridlock occurs, we analyze it right after. So the technology is there with us.

It's impossible to tow lakhs of vehicles a day, so parking enforcement is done in main roads only, says Sood. Pic: Navya P K

We are coordinating with Metro in an intensive way to see that the Metro work finishes and all roads that are blocked due to Metro are opened. Once these roads open, traffic will ease a lot. Our main job is to ensure people maintain discipline on the road, and so all kinds of enforcement - whether it is overspeeding enforcement, drunken driving or signal jumping, we are going all out.

We are also keeping a watch on the wholesale violators. Now we are cracking down on taxi drivers and taxi companies. Instead of catching individual taxi drivers on the roads, we are approaching their companies. Suppose company has 20 vehicles, we give them the complete list of all violations by their vehicles and recover fines from them. They in turn should recover fine from those drivers.

Recently Meru Cabs paid a fine of one and a half lakh rupees. Easy Cab paid one and half lakh rupees. Cel Cab paid about Rs 20,000. Violations include jumping signals, overspeeding, because many taxis think that nobody is watching them. So instead of stopping them for single offences, what we are doing is we are computerizing all records. They should take responsibility in disciplining their drivers.

Navya P K is a staff journalist with Citizen Matters.

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