Nagpur: Despite thin vehicular movement on roads during the COVID-19 epidemic in 2021 and 2022, the traffic violation by vehicle riders and drivers on Nagpur roads are much higher than post pandemic period, claimed a Right to Information (RTI) reply by Nagpur Traffic Department.
RTI activist Abhay Kolarkar had put an RTI query to the Traffic Department asking how many violations took place in the past four years in the city, and how much revenue the Department collected from the traffic offenders. The reply to the RTI query was shocking. Between January 1, 2020 and October 31, 2023 there were a total 20.18 lakh traffic violations in Nagpur city.
In the year 2021, when the second wave of COVID-19 was active, the Department recorded the highest 9.74 lakh offenders who were booked for traffic violations. In 2020 when the lockdown commenced, the number was 7.27 lakh. However, as per the data provided by the Department, the violation in post pandemic period was much less. In 2022, the traffic violations came down to just 2 lakh. Now, the question is, how did the traffic violation cases increase so dramatically during COVID-19 when the roads and highway networks were blocked to historic proportions?
The RTI reply further informed that total Rs 25.14 crore revenue was collected by the Traffic Department in 2020 by penalising violators, while in 2021, the collected revenue was Rs 35.73 crore. In the second wave of COVID during 2022, the revenue collection almost doubled by Rs 55.40 crore. And, till October 31, 2023, the collection has already crossed Rs 55.28 crore.
In 2020, the highest number of traffic violators were small vehicles with 4.89 lakh cases whereas in 2021, the number increased by 7.11 lakh — 6,150 in 2022 and 4,079 in 2023. Total 1.24 lakh cases were registered against car drivers in 2020. In 2021, 1.34 lakh cases were registered; in 2022, 1.30 lakh cases registered; and in 2023, the number has crossed 69,908.
In Nagpur, rash driving and traffic violation by autorickshaw drivers are always a major concern for the Traffic Department. However, there are 27,631 cases registered against auto rickshaw drivers in 2020, whereas 27,175 traffic violations happened in 2021. The number decreased in 2022 as 17,080 autorickshaw drivers were booked. In 2023, so far, 26,248 such offenders have been booked for traffic violations. The data showed that the traffic department collected less revenue when the number of traffic violations were high and in the post COVID-19 pandemic period the department collected almost double revenue when the violations were lesser.
However, the Traffic Department has not provided any data about traffic violation cases by police personnel and government vehicles in the last four years.
