The city’s vehicle population crossed the 46 lakh-mark this week, taking the density to 2,300 vehicles for every km of road and leading to a ‘population explosion’. There is no cap on the number of cars that can be registered, which could be disastrous in the near future. The government should make purchase of new vehicles difficult so that people buy and sell only “used cars” to ensure that the number of vehicles remain constant and excess vehicles get phased out. The biggest problem is that on a day when even 40 percent Mumbaikars take out their vehicles, the entire city will be blocked in one hour. Many people also get the vehicles from other cities or states without registering it, which adds to congestion.

Highway toll mopup rises to a five-year high of Rs.648.1 billion

India’s highway toll collection in FY24 increased by 34.9 percent to a five-year high of Rs.648.1 billion. A shift to satellite-based toll collection may increase revenue. Pilots are being done and based on feedback the system will be rolled out pan India. MORTH is pilot testing a satellite-based GPS toll collection system that operates on the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and the automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras to ensure customers pay only for the stretch they use.  

Pilot Programme: Cashless treatment for accident victims

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) launched a pilot programme to provide cashless treatment to victims of road accidents caused by the use of motor vehicles in Chandigarh.

Under the programme, road accident victims will be entitled to cashless treatment up to a maximum of Rs.0.15 million per accident per person for a maximum period of seven days from date of accident. Besides, the benefits will be applicable to all road accidents caused by use of motor vehicles on any category of road and the government has co-opted the Ayushman Bharat PM Jan Aarogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) for trauma and polytrauma cases.

SOPs for digitising sanction of Pan India projects

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has issued detailed standard operating procedures (SOPs) to record and digitise the sanction process for all road projects with effect from 1 April 2024. In a notification, it said that the move is aimed at ensuring paperless, informative, transparent and accountable sanction process and has to be mandatorily followed for works being executed through the National Highways Authority of India. As per the notification, besides NHAI other stakeholders involved in construction of roads and highways will also be mandated to sanction projects based on the SOPs.

Contact: MoRTH

Website: www.morth.nic.in

5,000 cameras to manage traffic in Delhi

The Delhi transport department is planning to install 5,000 cameras at junctions across the city to integrate an Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS) for the national capital. These cameras will be used for surveillance and issuing traffic challans and will eventually be used for traffic and signal management and public announcements. As per a tender, the selected agency will have to set up cameras with an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system for 16 traffic violations — along with ICCC infrastructure — within three years and will have to arrange for storage capacity to save all videos and data for the next five years. Officials said that the system will be integrated with the government’s E-challan portal.