Gujarat grapples with traffic police shortage , traffic brigade overworked
Updated: Mar 17th, 2024
Gujarat faces a shortage of police personnel, leading to 10,000 traffic brigade members managing traffic. Despite increased stipends, vacancies persist, resulting in rising traffic violations.
Traffic moving at a snail’s pace is not something that is new for someone who belongs to Gujarat. On one hand the number of vehicles and commuters increase, while on the other, the number of traffic personnels is facing a terrible shortage.
With vacancies remaining unfilled, approx 10,000 traffic brigade members are shouldering the responsibility of managing traffic flow.
Despite increased stipends offered to these volunteers, the absence of regular police recruitment continues, leading to a surge in traffic violations.
No regular police recruitment by the Gujarat government now creates the situation where traffic brigades have to administrate the traffic on roads.
Statistics show that there have been a lot of talks but the police have not been recruited in the state as required. This has led to a situation where the assistance of the traffic brigade is taken.
According to the data, there is a need to recruit more than 25,000 police personnel in the state under the recommendation of the central government. Despite this, the government does not advertise. This has led to the traffic brigade doing traffic regulation work as the number of police is less.
At present around 10,000 members of the traffic brigade are helping in the operation of traffic regulation in the state of Gujarat.
As per a resolution issued by the Home Department, the daily stipend paid to traffic brigade personnel increased from ₹200 to ₹300.
In the absence of traffic police, the traffic violations in 2020-21 was 1,74,559. In 2021-22 it was 2,02,402 and in 2022-23 it was 2,24,685.
The state has received a total of ₹2,31,51,25,379 (₹231 cr) in three years through fines from the offenders.
Also read:
