Tightening noose around the traffic violators, the Jammu and Kashmir records around 2000 challans on an average daily. An official of the Traffic Department told that there has been increase in traffic challans for the last many years. “Strict directives have been issued to the traffic department to challan every traffic violator,” the official said. As per the official figures, the Traffic Department has challananed 379319 traffic violators in 2010, comprising 59,782 court challans and 319537 compound challans. The number of traffic challans in 2016 reached to 662930 comprising 64610 court challans and 598320 compound challans. This year, the Traffic Department till the end of July month challaned 286068 traffic violators, comprising 34333 court challans and 251735 compound challans. As per these figures, around 1,800 traffic violators are being challaned on an average daily in the state. The Traffic Department officials said that the increase in number of challans implies that traffic department is collecting more revenue for the government.
However, the official said that in some states it has been recommended that 50 percent of all fines collected should be devoted to road safety activities. The official said that most of the road accidents do happen because of traffic violations. “It is responsibility of everyone to check whether traffic rules are being followed.” According to the official figures of the Traffic Department, around 11,000 road accidents have been reported annually for the last two years in the state. The actual number, according to police officials, could be much higher as many incidents go unreported. In 2015, 917 people lost their lives in 5,800 road accidents. In 2016, 958 lives were claimed and over 7,700 suffered injuries in road accidents in the state. (KNS)