Plaints against corrupt traffic cops fall by 15 per cent

Mumbai: With the traffic police officials gearing up with body cams to curb corruption, the complaints received by the Mumbai Traffic Police (MTP) have decreased by a mere 15 per cent, dropping from 725 in June to 637 in July. The officials claim that the new gadgets will help them do their work well but it will take some time to show results.

The MTP’s efforts of introducing various gadgets was with a simple aim of reducing the corruption allegations put on them by the citizens over emails and contact numbers provided on their website.

The Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Amitesh Kumar had filed an affidavit last month laying down several steps that have already been taken to curb the corruption in the Traffic police department and to ensure transparency after a retired police constable Sunil Toke alleging rampant corruption in the police department.

Mr Kumar told this paper, “The new technology used to curb corruption has been put in place, which will give out good results in time.”

The number of complaints registered since these steps were taken has fallen by a 15 per cent from June to July. The complaints registered in the months of May and June were 762 and 725 respectively.

An officer of the Mumbai police’s traffic department said on the condition of anonymity that in order to minimise the handling of cash by police personnel, a cashless system of collecting fines and penalties through an E-challan system was put into place, but as the motorists were flouting the payment deadlines, the officials had to start collecting fines in cash yet again.